The collapse of Zimbabwe’s economy and, consequently, its health care system in December 2008 led to widespread food insecurity, malnutrition, and outbreaks of infectious disease, including cholera. PHR led an investigation which concluded that the government of then-President Robert Mugabe had used any means at its disposal, including politicizing the health sector, to maintain its […]

What happens when high-ranking government officials from Zimbabwe who committed crimes against humanity travel to South Africa, where the law requires the investigation and prosecution of such individuals? Nothing. That is, until now. Ten years after enacting a universal jurisdiction law allowing for the prosecution of foreign nationals accused of committing serious human rights abuses, […]

Last week, The Governor of theMasvingo Province in Zimbabwe banned 29 NGO’s providing humanitarian relief and security in the region.The banned organizations – which include both local groups like Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rightsand Care International– have provided basic services and support to mitigate a worsening humanitariansituation in the country. A joint statement issued by […]

While the Zimbabwean Constitution Select Committeedrafts a new constitution for the country, The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights notethat the constitution lacks transparency and, importantly, legitimacy.Zimbabwe’s planned 2012 electionmay be a long-awaited opportunity to fairly and freely elect a candidate. The list of human rights violations during Mugabe’sprolonged presidency is extensive.  Rights groups allege torture […]

Accordingto recent reports from watchdog organization Sokwanele,politically-motivated human rights abuses are on the rise in Zimbabwe. PresidentRobert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party employed brutal tactics to garner votes inZimbabwe’s March 2008 elections. His main political rival and leader of theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai became Prime Ministerafter a Southern African Development Community (SADC)-brokered […]

The World Bank in Zimbabwe is piloting a new project aimed at averting another cholera crisis like the massive outbreak the country experienced in 2008. Called the Beitbridge Emergency Water Supply and Sanitation Project, the project aims to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in Beitbridge, the largest inland port in Sub–Saharan Africa and also major […]

  Medical students during PHR's human rights training, Fall 2008. Last year, thanks to the dedication of our wonderful PHR intern Margeaux Fischer, a donation of 441 medical textbooks was shipped to the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), with whom we helped organize a health and human rights training for medical students […]

Physicians for Human Rights anticipates in Zimbabwe an imminent outbreak of cholera. Cholera has killed more than 4,200 people there and infected another 100,000 since August 2008,?because the coalition government has failed to address the underlying causes of this entirely preventable disease.In our January 2009 report, Health in Ruins: A Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe, PHR […]

President Robert Mugabe today threatened to ban humanitarian organizations from operating in Zimbabwe. Calling these nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) "a type of government in the background of a formal government," Mugabe questioned the "advisability of having NGOs" remain in the country.As PHR reported in its January 2009 report, Health in Ruins: A Man-Made Disaster in Zimbabwe, […]

Based on findings from a recent PHR investigation, the Harvard International Review yesterday published a feature article on Zimbabwe's Man-Made Disaster.The article traces the antecedents to the current health crisis and the unprecedented national regression that occurs when a government reverses its population’s access to food, clean water, sanitation and healthcare.? It concludes with a […]

Douglas Gwatidzo, MD, head of Zimbabwe Physicians for Human Rights (Public Radio International) Zimbabwean physician Douglas Gwatidzo has collaborated with Physicians for Human Rights in investigations of his country's health and human rights disaster. Dr. Gwatidzo is the 2009 winner of the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights, which he will accept tomorrow […]

Zimbabwe—once Southern Africa’s bread basket—is starving for food, for water, for justice, for peace. Join Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International USA as we launch a petition and photo drive for Zimbabwe in honor of the country’s Independence Day—which is today, April 18. Sign the Petition Please sign the petition urging the United Nations […]

In a recent letter to the New York Times, I suggested that donor governments maintain targeted sanctions against a small cohort of Zimbabwe's power elite, but that they should also now provide targeted humanitarian support to the struggling country in transition. Newspaper editors so value brevity but here in the blogosphere, where the real estate […]

Physicians for Human Rights Senior Investigator, Richard Sollom, published a letter in Friday's New York Times, in response to the Times editorial, Villains and Victims in Zimbabwe. "Villains and Victims in Zimbabwe" (editorial, March 30) rightly calls on the United States and Europe to provide the fledgling unity government in Zimbabwe with increased financial resources. […]

So the good news is that the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is finally getting under control. Weekly case fatality rates have dropped from over 5% to now about 1%. The bad news is that tuberculosis may soon take its place as a leading cause of death in Zimbabwe. According to the WHO, Zimbabwe has the […]

A new documentary on Zimbabwe's cholera epidemic quotes a former UN humanitarian official as saying: The United Nations deliberately downplayed the crisis to avoid confrontation with President Mugabe and his ZANU-PF regime. The Geneva-based International Council of Voluntary Agencies goes further and calls for the UN to sack the current UN humanitarian coordinator in Zimbabwe, […]

Cholera is a preventable disease, yet there’s an epidemic raging in Zimbabwe. At least 4,000 are dead, and some 90,000 infected. PHR's Richard Sollom tells Foreign Correspondent: “Such outbreaks happen in wartime. The last cholera epidemic on this scale was in Rwanda after the genocide.” Watch or Listen Now » Source: ABC News Foreign Correspondent

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith just announced that his government will provide Zimbabwe with another $6.5 million in aid to help the so-called unity government restore urgent access to safe water, adequate sanitation and health services. What's so controversial? He's betting that historically corrupt ZANU-PF government officials won't again abscond with these aid dollars the […]

In the past few years, health professional students across East Africa have become increasingly involved in health and human rights advocacy, coming together with peers and future colleagues, professors and the human rights community to demand policy and programming that protects and promotes the right to health. In a few short weeks we'll be bringing […]

Recently we sent out an urgent action alert about Zimbabwe human rights and civil leaders who have been jailed and tortured since their unlawful arrest in December 2008. More than 500 of you responded by emailing Professor Welshman Ncube, Chairman of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) and the director of the Zimbabwe Prison […]

UPDATE (3/9): Tsvangirai says crash an accident (BBC): Mr Tsvangirai said there was only a "one in a thousand" chance that the incident involved any foul play. UPDATE (3/8): Public remorse from the distraught driver of the truck that ran into the Tsvangirais leads some to believe the crash was an accident. The Movement for […]

The US Department of State released this week its human rights report card for 194 countries and territories, which it has submitted annually to the US Congress in compliance with the federal Foreign Assistance Act (PDF) since 1977. It took a whopping 26,000 words to describe the Mugabe regime's "pervasive and systematic abuse of human […]

Zimbabwe's economy is in ruins. Disease runs rampant. The public health system has collapsed. Private health care is all that remains, and in a country where many workers make less than $1 per month, a simple medical consultation starts at $200–that's more than 15 years of income for most! In our new video, PHR examines […]

Just take a look at Zimbabwe, which until recently was one of Africa’s leading agricultural producers. In fact, agriculture contributed to 45% of Zimbabwe’s export earnings and provided livelihood to more than 70% of the population. Tragically, more than seven million Zimbabweans today rely on food assistance, according to the UN World Food Program. How […]

Newsweek’s 31 January interview with Zimbabwe’s central banker, Gideon Gono, is lamentable not only for its factual inaccuracies, but also for giving voice to a Mugabe henchman whose monetary policies have led to the collapse of the economy, shuttering of hospitals, and closing of schools. As part of PHR's emergency assessment delegation, I traveled throughout […]