Digging up graves to get sand and gravel for reselling - dubbed "sand
poaching" - has been happening since last year, the Bulawayo city council
says in a report
Telegraph, 11 May 2015
Poverty in Zimbabwe has become so desperate, many are digging up graves to extract pit sand and gravel for resale in the country’s second city, Bulawayo, the council has said.
City
council officials described the crime as “sand poaching” at Bulawayo’s
Hyde Park cemetery and said the night-time raids on graves was
“abominable”.
The illegal
excavations regularly exposed coffins and the council said the thieves
are selling the sand and stone from graves to people building small
homes in Pumula, a poor suburb near the cemetery.
Zanele Hwalima, Bulawayo’s health director, said in the latest report
to the city council that “sand poaching” began last year: “What was
particularly disturbing was that although we have requested for soil –
to refill the graves, the thieves had come and carted away this soil
again."
The council agreed that the 'sand poachers' behaviour was “abominable and showed disrespect to the dead”.
Zimbabweans are now poorer then at any time in the past, according to
economist John Robertson. “I am not surprised to hear people are digging
up graves in Bulawayo. "The economy has never been closer to the edge then now, and Bulawayo has been particularly hard hit.”
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (Reuters)
He said that Zimbabwe needs to import food this year (2015) after a poor rainy season and it was not clear how President Robert Mugabe’s government would finance imports.
The Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), financed by US AID, said last week that Zimbabwe had only grown half the maize it needed to feed the population until the next harvest in 2016.
The International Monetary Fund, which says it cannot lend money to Zimbabwe until it pays its debt, said last month that the economy was “precarious” and was not improving despite the impact of the lower oil price.
“We have never been so hard up as now. Our retail sales drop every month,” said the manager of a major Harare supermarket company who asked not to be named.
“We are seeing increasing poverty and I keep on noticing real hunger in the streets of Harare. Can you imagine what it is like in some of the rural areas where drought was particularly bad and almost no maize survived last season?”
Please, see also
Zimbabwe (tag)
Orthodox Zimbabwe (tag)
Orthodox Mission, Poverty, Capitalism (tags)
Orthodox Church & Capitalism: Orthodox Fathers of Church on poverty, wealth and social justice
Is capitalism compatible with Orthodox Christianity?
Grace and “the Inverted Pyramid”
Orthodox Church & Capitalism: Orthodox Fathers of Church on poverty, wealth and social justice
Is capitalism compatible with Orthodox Christianity?
Grace and “the Inverted Pyramid”
The Way - An introduction to the Orthodox Faith
Theosis (deification): The True Purpose of Human Life
Theosis (deification): The True Purpose of Human Life
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