The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
by Andy Davey
EXILE Faith Jupp is appealing for a Good Samaritan to give refuge to a desperate family which has fled Zimbabwe with nothing but a handful of suitcases.
The single mother from Highcliffe escaped Zimbabwe three years ago with nothing except her 15-year-old daughter, a suitcase and £50.
But she does not have enough room in her two-bedroom rented flat to shelter the exhausted family and their four children, aged between two and seven, who have spent the last two years living in fear for their lives.
Frustrated Mrs Jupp explained she has tried everything she can think of to accommodate her friends, who she says are like family to her, but she does not have the cash or the room in her home to give shelter to them all.
"They have had a really traumatic time," she said. "They have sold everything they own to get a ticket out of Zimbabwe. They just need somewhere to stay for a few days where they can try and gather themselves together."
Mrs Jupp explained how the Main-Baillie family, from Gueru, in Zimbabwe's rural midlands, endured death threats and intimidation, culminating in the terrifying week-long abduction of father Bruce.
The family's livelihood was snatched away when veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence seized their mine and without money the family was forced to rely on friends to put them up, but was split apart for months on end.
"They just need some time so they can start to feel safe again and rebuild their lives," Mrs Jupp said.
"People must be leaving daily because they just can't cope any more. I just hope there is someone out there who can help them until they can stand up on their own."
The family is due to arrive at Gatwick on Monday evening (August 9).
BBC News
Scores hurt in Harare train crash | ||
A traffic controller "misdirected" the trains onto the same section of track, Deputy Transport Minister Andrew Langa told state radio. Four carriages overturned and police cordoned off the area, as worried relatives scrambled to find their loved ones. Railways have become more widely used due to shortages of petrol for buses. Last year, some 50 people were killed in a train crash in western Zimbabwe. A spokeswoman for Harare's Parirenyatwa hospital, the largest in the country, Jane Dadzie, said some of the 98 people admitted were in critical condition. "We are going to investigate the accident and we will punish the culprits," Transport and Communications Minister Chris Mushowe told reporters when he visited the crash scene with several other government ministers. |
Daily news | ||||
Suspected mercenaries lose appeal
Wednesday August 04, 2004 11:52 - (SA)
South Africa's highest court on Wednesday rejected an
appeal by 70 suspected mercenaries held in Zimbabwe who tried to force President
Thabo Mbeki's government to seek their extradition. The Constitutional Court upheld a ruling by the High Court in June that there were insufficient grounds to order the South African government to take action to bring home the 70 men accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. "The Constitutional Court today dismisses the appeal against the judgment of the High Court in Pretoria," Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson pronounced. "All the judgments hold that the claim that steps be taken as a matter of urgency by the South African government to seek the extradition of the applicants from Zimbabwe must be dismissed," he said. The trial of the 70 men opened on July 27 in Harare with most of the alleged soldiers of fortune pleading guilty to minor charges of violating aviation and immigration laws. The 70 suspected mercenaries, all of whom were carrying South African passports, were arrested on March 7 at Harare airport when their plane made a stopover to pick up weapons they claim were to be used to guard a diamond mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But Zimbabwe authorities claim that the men were on their way to Malabo to join 15 other suspected mercenaries and carry out a coup to topple long-time leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema. AFP |
Doctor asks Valley for funds to run hospital in Zimbabwe
By
Matthew Ebnet
Post-Crescent staff
writer
APPLETON — The
67-year-old physician returned Tuesday to his home state from a city of about
50,000 in Africa, where he now lives, to make his plea.
He is seeking medical supplies, medicine, monetary donations and moral
support.
Anything to help improve the Mvuma, Zimbabwe, hospital he operates, which is
less a hospital and more of a final resort, a ramshackle operation of 188 beds,
two doctors, 23 nurses and, on average, two deaths a day from AIDS.
Richard Stoughton, of St. Theresa’s Hospital, told the Rotary Club of
Appleton that the hospital is overwhelmed. It is bombarded, not only with
treating 8,500 cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but also the other
ailments that come from living in a Third World country.
“The No. 1 problem is AIDS. But we have all the other health problems, too,”
Stoughton said during the afternoon gathering.
“We’re going through some very difficult times … we have a budget of about
$250,000 a year. If there were 750 deaths from AIDS in Shawano, we’d be doing a
lot more about it.”
Ram Shat, treasurer of the Rotary, who spent 17 years in West Africa before
moving to the Fox Cities, said the Rotary business community gathers and sends
$250,000 of medical supplies every year to Stoughton in Zimbabwe, a country just
above South Africa on the southern tip of the continent.
The supplies could include anything from simple arm slings to antibiotics or
defibrillator paddles.
“Personally, the impact of health care is incredible. People go to the
hospital as a last resort. When they are sick, it is a (different kind of) sick.
It is a desperate sick.”
After spending roughly five years in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) in the early
1970s as missionaries, Stoughton and his wife, Loretta, also 67 and a physician,
lived about 25 years in Shawano as general practitioners.
When the so-called age of retirement approached, it somehow didn’t feel
right.
“I’m too healthy to not do anything,” Stoughton said.
So the couple returned.
Richard and Loretta Stoughton are there as missionaries again, working as an
offshoot of the Los Angeles-based Mission Doctors Association. The project is
officially called SAMP, the Sharing Around the World Medical Project.
Stoughton and his wife have been back in Zimbabwe for 2½ years, driving an
Isuzu truck on bad roads, sometimes making crutches out of simple sticks and
wood, trying to help make a 12 million-person country that is chronically tired
and sick a little bit healthier, and offer at least a small measure of hope.
Matthew Ebnet can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 526, or by e-mail at mebnet@postcrescent.com
The Post Crescent - USA
General News of Wednesday, 04 August 2004 |
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© Mmegi, 2002 Developed by Cyberplex Africa |
August 04 2004 at 12:21PM IOL: AFRICA | |
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by 69 South
Africans held in Harare against a judgment by the Pretoria High Court in June
that the government be compelled to assist them.
The majority decision, written by Chaskalson, confirmed the order made by Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe in June that government could not be compelled to demand the return of the men to South Africa or be forced to ensure the men received fair trials and were detained under internationally acceptable conditions. In his argument he was supported by Deputy Chief Justice Pius Langa and judges Dikgang Moseneke, Lewis Skweyiya, Johann van der Westhuizen and Zak Yacoob. Judges Sandile Ngcobo and Albie Sachs broadly agreed with the majority view while Justices Kate O'Regan and Yvonne Mokgoro dissented. In the majority judgment, Chaskalson also chided the lawyers for the men for attempting to rush the process through the media. "There is no justification for the peremptory manner in which the proceedings were commenced, no satisfactory explanation for the failure to make the demand at the time the media was informed that court proceedings were to be launched. It must have been obvious to the applicants' attorneys that the demands could not reasonably have been responded to (by the government) within twenty four hours," Chaskalson said. "Not surprisingly, there was no response." Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the department "noted and welcomed" the court's decision. "We still have to study the full text of the judgment to enable us to comment in greater detail. Nonetheless government will continue to offer consular services to South Africans imprisoned abroad including those in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea," Mamoepa said. - Sapa
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