GENEVA — Aid agencies in Zimbabwe said Friday that the government order for humanitarian groups to suspend work would cut off care and medicine to those living with AIDS.
Aid groups and Western officials also said that many in the impoverished African country will starve without food aid, amid allegations that President Robert Mugabe’s regime is using food to cement his rule.
On Thursday, Mugabe’s government ordered aid groups to suspend field work indefinitely, saying they had violated the terms of their agreement. It has accused at least one group of campaigning for the opposition in the June 27 presidential runoff between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai.
Zimbabwe’s National Association of Non Governmental Organizations, after an emergency meeting Friday in the capital of Harare, challenged the government to name charitable, aid and civic groups it alleged were in breach of regulations and specify the accusations against them.
“One cruel direct impact of the ban will be that people living with HIV/AIDS will increasingly die since many NGOs provide assistance in the form of home-based care and anti-retroviral medication,” the group said in a statement.
Starvation is also a concern in what was once a regional breadbasket but now suffers from the world’s highest inflation rate that puts the price of staples out of reach. The halting of private aid group operations leaves poor Zimbabweans dependent on the government and Mugabe’s party.
