Kitsepile Nyathi
29 July 2008
Harare — Thousands of Zimbabweans displaced by politically-motivated violence are still stranded, amid fears of a humanitarian crisis a month after President Robert Mugabe won the one candidate presidential run -off election.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Zimbabwe estimates that the number of displaced people is 36,000 with 16,844 confirmed.
Aid agencies, banned from carrying out field operations in the run-up to the elections on accusations that they were campaigning for the opposition, have appealed for an immediate lifting of the ban so that they could offer support to the victims and the more than three million Zimbabweans facing starvation.
Thousands of people were forced to abandon their homes after President Robert Mugabe's militant supporters unleashed a reign of terror in an effort to reverse the veteran leader's first round defeat to his arch-rival, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Mr Tsvangirai pulled out of the June 27 run-off citing the death of more than 100 of his supporters and the displacement of thousands others.
Organisations taking care of the victims, who are mostly supporters of the MDC, said although they had assisted several hundreds of people to return to their homes, some were still unprepared to face their tormentors.
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