French doctors flee war veterans

Four volunteer doctors from the French organisation, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) had fled Inyathi, about 30 km outside Bulawayo, after being threatened by war veterans, the ‘Daily News’ reported on Friday. The war veterans accused the doctors, who were working on an HIV/AIDS support programme in the area, of being linked to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the report said. The doctors, together with four local field officers and a co-ordinator, fled to the safety of Bulawayo.

According to the report, the doctors arrived in the country in September last year and were accredited by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare as volunteers. They were posted to Inyathi which, like any other part of Zimbabwe, is recording high HIV/AIDS-related deaths. Trouble started when the doctors from MSF, which sponsors the outpatients’ programme, offered the job of field officer to Eveline Kufa, who is not from the area, the report said. The war veterans demanded that Kufa’s appointment be overturned because she was not from Inyathi. They wanted a local to be appointed instead. The doctors resisted the move, resulting in the war veterans threatening to beat them up.