Zimbabwe inmates starving in cash-strapped jails -report

At least 100 Zimbabwean prisoners have died of hunger and disease this year because the cash-strapped government can only afford one meal a day for inmates, a senior official was quoted as saying on Tuesday. Prison farms were not getting enough seed and fertiliser from the government to produce sufficient food to feed inmates, the NewsDay newspaper quoted Deputy Commissioner for Prisons Aggrey Machingauta as telling a parliamentary committee. The privately owned newspaper also quoted the chief secretary of the justice ministry, Virginia Mabhiza, as telling the committee Zimbabwe's 46 prisons required $1 million a month to run properly. Zimbabwe is struggling to right its economy after a decade-long economic crisis to 2009, which critics blame on mismanagement by veteran President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.