2 dead as cholera hits Bulawayo

By Alex Bell
21 November 2008

Two people have died in Zimbabwe’s second largest city as the country’s devastating cholera epidemic continues to spread across the country.

Bulawayo is the latest city to be affected by the disease that has unofficially left nearly three hundred people dead. According to media reports on Friday two deaths have been recorded and another nine people have been diagnosed with the disease in Bulawayo.

Resident Minister for Bulawayo Province Cain Mathema told journalists on Thursday that two men died after travelling to the southern Zimbabwe border city of Beitbridge where the disease has claimed at least 44 lives in the past week alone.

Mathema said; “One died on Wednesday after a visit to Beitbridge. The other, a truck driver, died on Saturday at Mpilo Central Hospital after he also arrived from Beitbridge.”

The other nine people suspected of having cholera in Bulawayo include four men, two women and a 10-year-old child. They have been admitted at Thorngrove Isolation Centre.

With Bulawayo left with less than a month’s supply of water purification chemicals, Mathema urged stakeholders to assist in the restocking of the city's water treatment chemicals.

The disease, which is said to be claiming at least ten lives daily in Budiriro, has also spread across the border to the South Africa border town, Musina, where three people are confirmed to have died this week. South African health officials have said they are monitoring at least 70 individuals who have the disease – all but two of them are Zimbabwean.

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Suspicious imports of Zim maize seed prompts SA investigation
By Alex Bell
21 November 2008

Concerns have been raised in South Africa about recent large quantities of maize seed being imported from Zimbabwe – despite the country being in the grip of a critical food shortage.

An agricultural watchdog organisation, Afri Compliance, on Thursday said a recent routine investigation revealed that large quantities of maize seed were
being imported from Zimbabwe to South Africa, through the Beitbridge border post.

Joe Hanekom, managing director of Afri Compliance, said the maize was being brought into South Africa at ‘ridiculously low values’ of an estimated R2.70 per kilogram. Hanekom said: “This makes one wonder about the legitimacy of these transactions.”

It’s understood the possibility that the imported maize seed came from a neighbouring country such as Zambia has been ruled out, because it was determined through internal investigations that the country of origin was Zimbabwe. Hanekom said the situation has been reported to the South African authorities and the company would help the investigating team to solve the problem.

The imports have been taking place in the midst of the crippling food shortage that has left millions of Zimbabweans facing starvation. The critical lack of food has seen those with access to foreign currency head into their neighbouring countries to buy food – a situation that recently prompted a call from a Botswana MP to deport Zimbabweans found bulk buying maize there. At the same time Zimbabwe’s Minister of Agriculture, Rugare Gumbo, recently said that the government was still battling to secure sufficient maize seed for the 2008 planting season.

Afri Compliance’s Hanekom also said on Thursday that as far as he was aware, there was still a ‘moratorium on exports of maize seed from Zimbabwe’, further raising suspicions about the legality and legitimacy of the maize imports.

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