/ 11 January 2008

Zim army helps flood victims

Zimbabwe has drafted in soldiers to help move food aid and medicines to hundreds of flood victims in the north of the country, reports said on Friday.

An army vehicle and army personnel are in Muzarabani in Mashonaland Central province, where several hundreds of villagers were displaced by floods in December, the official Herald daily said.

There are plans to permanently relocate some of the affected.

”Some families are willing to move out permanently once an alternative place is found,” Brigadier General Douglas Nyikayaramba said. Amazingly, crops in the Muzarabani area are not a complete write-off.

Floods hit parts of northern and south-eastern Zimbabwe during what turned out to be the wettest December for more than 100 years. At least 32 people were killed. Flood damage was also reported in several suburbs of Harare.

Despite the rains, some residents of one low-income suburb of the capital have been without piped water for six months now, the Herald said in a separate report.

Residents of Hatcliffe in northern Harare have no option but to buy water by the bucket from schools or private homes with wells. — Sapa-dpa