January 14, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 16, 1430

HARARE, Jan 13: The death toll of Zimbabwe’s cholera epidemic swelled past 2,000 people on Tuesday.

Fresh data from the World Health Organisation showed that the treatable water-borne disease has killed more than 2,000 people since August with the number of diagnosed cases reaching almost 40,000.

The new figures came as US-based Physicians for Human Rights said Mugabe should be charged with crimes against humanity over rights abuses and the collapse of the nation’s health system.

The recommendation was made in a damning 45-page report following the group’s mission to Zimbabwe last month.

The “ZANU-PF regime continues to violate Zimbabweans’ civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights,” the report said.

The group’s four-member team, which included two physicians, met 90 people, including lawmakers, government officials, health workers, farmers and others during their December 13-20 mission.

“These findings add to the growing evidence that Robert Mugabe and his regime may well be guilty of crimes against humanity,” they said in the report’s preface, also signed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

With basic infrastructure crumbling, Zimbabweans suffer the lowest life expectancy in the world, at 36 years, while more than one in every 100 women die during or shortly after pregnancy, it noted.

Doctors at public hospitals — which have been crippled by staff and drug shortages — have vowed to maintain a strike launched last year until a demand for better pay is met, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on Monday.

Striking doctors had turned down a government offer of a monthly salary of between 150 and 850 US dollars, the newspaper quoted a doctors association official as saying.

Junior doctors had demanded a monthly salary of 2,600 US dollars while specialist doctors wanted 4,000 US dollars.

—AFP