MSF calls on SA to help ailing Zimbabwe

“It’s a major humanitarian crisis here on this side of the border,” Eric Goemaere, medical co-ordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) SA , said in Johannesburg yesterday.

Goemaere said the group was speaking out now for fear that Zimbabwe’s troubles and their effect on the region were being forgotten.

He said there was a mistaken impression that the formation of a unity government in Zimbabwe in February meant the crisis was over. “The situation is still not solved.”

In a report, MSF detailed Zimbabweans fleeing hunger, disease and political violence only to be raped by criminals at the border, harassed by South African police once they crossed, and denied medical care at South African hospitals.

MSF said SA’s health system had been overwhelmed by an influx of Zimbabweans and that SA was struggling to provide shelter and other services for Zimbabweans.

SA officially entered recession this month, and even before that a quarter of the labour force was unemployed. That has led to resentment among some South Africans at the influx of thousands of Zimbabweans — there are no reliable estimates of just how many were in SA.

“You’re seeing increasing levels of resentment. People are saying, ‘Why are you not going home? Things are sorted now’,” said Richard Smith of Save Zimbabwe Now, a group campaigning to raise support among South Africans for Zimbabweans.

Zimbabweans were among the victims of a wave of xenophobic violence by South Africans last year.

Nomfanelo Kota, a spokeswoman for the Department of International Relations , said the changes making it easier for Zimbabweans to come and to stay made clear the government had “long been seized of this matter”.

International agencies have struggled to raise funds for Zimbabwe itself, raising questions about how much could be raised to help SA cope with the spillover. Sapa-AFP