Aid for Slum Victims Blocked

President Robert Mugabe's government has blocked a $30m (£16.6m) UN fundraising drive to provide food and medicine to Zimbabweans hardest hit by the state destruction of urban slum housing, UN relief officials said yesterday.

UN aid agencies presented the Mugabe government three weeks ago with a draft appeal to raise funds to assist more than 300,000 people worst affected by the demolitions. But the government rejected the idea, according to UN officials in Zimbabwe who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We are continuing to work with the government, but we have not gotten their support on the draft appeal to date," Kristen Knutson, spokeswoman for the UN emergency relief office, said yesterday. "We are working with the government to get access to those who are most vulnerable."

Despite hindrance from the Mugabe government, the UN has succeeded in distributing blankets, clean water and some food to 168,000 of the most vulnerable people. Unicef reported that 250,000 children were homeless, many living in transit camps as a result of the bulldozing of homes.

With relief funds scarce, the agency said in a statement, its own staff "had opted to help children out of their own pockets".