Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Feeling sorry for the animals? Well, the new homeless live worse than animals

LINK

.....Zimbabweans living in the Caledonia transit camp "are traumatised, bruised and battered into deep trauma", says Methodist bishop Ivan Abrahams, who was also part of the SACC group.

"It could have been a camp of displaced people in [the Democratic Republic of] Congo, [but] the whole tragedy is that we not talking about people in Congo."

"[It's] the same kind of thing you see in Bosnia," he told the M&G Online. "A lot of their shelter and livelihood had been destroyed. [They are] feeling very disillusioned, and the vulnerable among them are the women and the children.

Abrahams said the camp has no infrastructure in place and the only amenity available is a clinic, housed in a tent.

"This is the worst tragedy that the people there have ever witnessed. There are many, many babies that are still [being] breastfed.

"We were told that a doctor comes [once a day to the clinic]," says Abrahams -- but he only saw community workers handing out female condoms.

Remember my earlier post about pill ladies in villages without running water or basic medicine? Well, sounds like the UN is at work here.. they were notorious for handing out condoms and doing abortions in Bosnian camps that lacked basic supplies, although I must say that in Bosnia many of the women had been raped, so there was some excuse...

"There were a lot of younger people. They were just loitering. Besides one loud radio, other folk were just around. They were not productive. There was a sense of helplessness," he adds.

Most people are using plastic sheets as shelter.

"Judging from the most elementary and rudimentary shelters, it's plastic bags supported by a few poles. I could not see everybody [in one family] huddling in these rudimentary tents....


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