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No dignity ‘in life and death’: Zimbabwe’s public mortuary crisis  

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BY CHRIS MURONZI

For hours, Edgar Mukura had to endure the gut-turning stench of decomposing flesh wafting from the Harare Central Hospital mortuary as he sat on one of the concrete benches within the premises of the hospital, one of the biggest in the Southern African country.

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He was waiting to get post-mortem results in order to collect the body of his sister-in-law, who had recently died from pregnancy-related complications.

“I have been here since morning and I am trying to ignore the smell,” the 32-year-old self-employed businessman told Al Jazeera as he steadied himself to wait more hours. “I am not sure when I will get them (results).”

Yet he considered himself fortunate enough to be sitting outside, unlike the previous day.

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“If you think this smell is bad out here, wait until you get inside,” he told Al Jazeera authoritatively.

“I went inside yesterday to identify my sister-in-law … and I have never experienced anything like that.”

As he sauntered closer to the entrance of the morgue, the overpowering smell of rotting human flesh hit him hard.

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Still, nauseated as he was, he forced himself into some mortuary-issued overalls and white gumboots and delicately strode past hundreds of lifeless bodies.

“It starts from the door and gets worse with each step you take inside,” Mukura told Al Jazeera.

 “Bodies are stacked up on top of the other on shelves.

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“It’s a heap of corpses everywhere. One has to literally look at every one of them to identify a loved one.”

“Harare Hospital Mortuary needs urgent attention,” wrote popular comedian Prosper ‘Comic Pastor’ Ngomashi on his Facebook page after visiting the mortuary last week.

Ngomashi told Al Jazeera that he was “choked by the smell of rotting bodies”, even though he had a mask on.

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“I have been to other funeral homes,” he said, “and I didn’t realise that there were dead bodies on the premises.”

Infrastructure issues

Thousands of bereaved families thronging public mortuaries across Zimbabwe to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones have had to endure similar horrific experiences.

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But it is most evident in Harare, home to more than three million people.

Experts say the public facilities have limited holding capacities.

Figures of annual deaths are hard to come by in Zimbabwe, but mortuaries at three of its biggest public hospitals were built to take only about 150 bodies even though they handle much more.

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In December, one of them – Chitungwiza Central Hospital, which caters to a satellite town just outside Harare – was holding bodies in excess of its capacity, according to staff.

In the same period, Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals was holding upwards of 200 bodies or four times its capacity.

Sally Mugabe Central Hospital CEO Christopher Pasi says the hospital mortuary was holding bodies way above its installed capacity.

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“Remember the infrastructure was built a long time ago for a smaller Harare and now the city has grown exponentially,” he told Al Jazeera by telephone.

“We are working on plans to expand our holding capacity. We have a plan to resuscitate a stalled mortuary construction project.”

“We are usually almost always above holding capacity,” Pasi added. “Bodies are not frozen in morgues.

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“They are chilled to a certain temperature.

“Once the capacity is exceeded, that affects the distribution of temperature in the mortuary and hence the odours.”

At private hospitals, unaffordable for most citizens in a country where half of the population lives on below US$30 a month, there is always plenty of room for the dead.

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The power situation in the country has also worsened the situation.

Last September, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa), the national power utility company, imposed load-shedding schedules lasting up to 12 hours, citing limited generation capacity and repairs to power infrastructure. Since then, power outages have become everyday occurrences.

The country relies heavily on its only hydropower plant, the Kariba South Power Station, and Hwange Power Station, the largest of its coal-fired power stations.

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Both power stations have a combined generation capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

Hwange operates on obsolete equipment and needs periodic maintenance because of frequent breakdowns while Kariba, which requires a certain level of water to generate full capacity power, has been affected by low rainfall.

For even experienced hands in the end-of-life business, things have become so bad that they now dread the prospect of getting into the morgues.

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“Of all the mortuaries, Harare Hospital is the worst,” Albert Rugare, a funeral-home undertaker with more than a decade of experience, told Al Jazeera.

 “A terrible smell greets you when they open the doors and you never get used to it. It’s the part of the job I hate.”

Rugare also blamed archaic technology and the chemicals the hospital morticians use to embalm the bodies for the smell.

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No dignity ‘in life and death’

Zimbabwe is in the grips of an economic crisis characterised by a rapidly devaluing local currency, rising inflation that has eroded purchasing power, foreign currency shortage, low manufacturing production and unemployment of up to 90 percent.

 The Covid-19 pandemic has also led to increased health complications for many of the locals.

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 Industry insiders said that has led to socioeconomic issues that also delay the collection of corpses in some cases, leading to a congestion of the facilities.

Culture too often makes things complex, they added.

“In some cases, in-laws refuse to bury their deceased because customary things like lobola [bride price] were not paid by the husband for a deceased wife,” Pasi said.

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In some cases, bodies remain uncollected for up to four months, some being bodies brought in by police from murder scenes.

 In other cases, people are just too poor to afford the funeral and end up staying in the morgues for as long as a year, sometimes years.

Chitungwiza Central Hospital Spokesperson Audrey Tasaranarwo denied having any overload.

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In December, Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals spokesperson Lenos Dhire had confirmed his hospital was holding bodies in excess of its capacity but blamed the situation on a shortage of forensic pathologists in the country. He withheld comments on the current capacity.

Deputy Health minister John Mangwiro declined to comment.

“Which mortuaries are full?” he asked.

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“I am not in a position to comment as I am driving.

“You would have to speak to the chief director in my ministry or I will have an accident.”

Harare-based political scientist Rashweat Mukundu said the authorities had failed to cater to a growing population in the capital and called for investment in infrastructure.

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“There is no notable improvement to mortuary services, with some built before 1980 still expected to cater for a growing population,” he said.

“In life and death, the Zimbabwean government has failed to offer dignity to its people and this has left many families in distress,” Mukundu told Al Jazeera. – Al Jazeera

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Tens of Thousands in Zimbabwe Go Hungry as the Rains — and US Aid — Hold Back

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Tanayeishe Musau eats baobab porridge after school at his home in Mudzi, Zimbabwe, where the dish has become a daily staple amid worsening drought and hunger. Once a simple supplement, baobab porridge is now a primary meal for families like his, following widespread food shortages and the suspension of international aid.

BY LINDA MUJURU

This story was originally published by Global Press Journal.

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Agnes Tauzeni stands on her parched field. She is a mother to two children, and is expecting another. But now, in a time that might otherwise have been joyful, her hopes wither like the struggling crops before her.

 

Three times she’s gambled on the rains; three times the sky has betrayed her. Her first two plantings failed. The soil was too dry to sustain life. Though her third attempt yielded a few weak shoots, they offered little promise of a meaningful harvest. El Niño-driven droughts have disrupted once-reliable rains, leaving Tauzeni’s family and many like hers struggling to feed themselves.

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“I am always hungry,” Tauzeni says.

 

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She worries about the health of her unborn child, based on how little nutrition she consumes herself.

 

Adding to this, food aid, previously funded by the US Agency for International Development, halted suddenly in January. That transformed what was already a struggle into a desperate battle for survival.

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The food aid ended when US President Donald Trump, on his first day in office, issued an executive order that paused nearly all US foreign aid, most of which was administered by USAID. That agency is now all but defunct.

 

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Food aid in Zimbabwe was an ongoing area of funding for USAID. In November 2024, the agency announced $130 million for two seven-year programs, implemented by CARE and Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture, that would provide food aid and other related support to areas of Zimbabwe most in need. The programs, which stopped, were just part of an ongoing slate of activities designed to help Zimbabwe’s neediest people.

 

About 7.6 million people in Zimbabwe — nearly half the country’s population — need humanitarian assistance, according to a 2025 UNICEF report. Of those, nearly 6 million, like Tauzeni, rely on subsistence farming.

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Through the support of organizations with funding from USAID, people previously received cereals, edible seeds, oil and food vouchers.

 

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“A sudden withdrawal can put the entire community in a dire situation,” says Hilton Mbozi, a seed systems and climate change expert.

 

Tauzeni recalls that her community used to receive food supplies such as beans, cooking oil and peanut butter to help combat malnutrition.

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When Tauzeni got married in 2017, her fields promised abundance. Her harvests were plentiful, and her family never lacked food. Now, those memories feel like whispers from another world. The past two agricultural seasons, those harvests have been devastatingly poor.

 

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With an empty granary and dwindling options, Tauzeni’s family survives on the same food every day: baobab porridge in the morning and sadza with wild okra in the evening. But Tauzeniworries whether even this will be on the table in the coming months.

 

“The little maize I have, I got after weeding someone else’s crops, but that won’t take us far,” she says.

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Tauzeni says a 20-kilogram (44-pound) bag of maize costs US$13 in her village, an amount out of reach for her. Her only source of income is farming. When that fails, she has no money at all.

 

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Hunger like Tauzeni experiences is widespread. Some families now eat just once a day.

 

Headman David Musau, leader of Musau village where Tauzenilives, says some people in his village did not plant any seeds this season, fearing losses due to the low rainfall. The government provides food aid inconsistently, usually 7 kilograms (15 pounds) of wheat per person for three months.

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“It’s not enough, but it helps,” he says.

 

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But without any other food aid, survival is at stake, he says. “People will die in the near future.”

 

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Zimbabwe’s new mothers face extortion for ‘free’ child health cards

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Photo credit: Gamuchirai Masiyiwa, GPJ Zimbabwe

BY GAMUCHIRAI MASIYIWA

Summary: The quiet return of maternity fees and the black-market sale of essential documents put extra burdens on mothers as they struggle to navigate a broken system.

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First-time mother Connie Jowastands with her 3-month-old baby nestled against her back, chatting with other mothers in line. Like many women at this crowded clinic in Harare’s Mabvuku suburb, Jowa is trying to get a Child Health Card, which was unavailable when she gave birth at a public hospital, and was still out of reach at her local clinic. Health cards are mysteriously out of stock.

 

But they can be bought under the table, if you know who to ask and are willing to pay.

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Zimbabwe’s Child Health Cards, meant to be free to new mothers, are crucial documents that track babies’ growth, vaccinations and medical histories. Without them, each clinic visit becomes a reset button. Inquiry into the child’s medical history starts from scratch. Since July 2024, the cards have disappeared from health facilities across Harare’s central hospitals and 42 council clinics — even though the card’s producers say they’re making enough to meet demand. This artificial shortage has birthed a shadow market where clinic staff quietly sell this essential document to desperate mothers. This sort of nickel-and-dime bribery exposes deep cracks in a health care system that’s already failing the most vulnerable people.

 

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What started as a clandestine operation has become an open secret.

 

“When cards arrive at a clinic, they’re kept by the sister in charge. But it’s usually nurse aides or junior staff who sell them, working in cahoots with other staff members,” says Simbarashe James Tafirenyika, who leads the Zimbabwe Municipality’s Nurses and Allied Workers Union.

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Someone who sells 100 cards can pocket around US$500, she says, and none of that money goes to the government of the council.

 

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The going rate for the Child Health Card is US$5, say several mothers who spoke to Global Press Journal.

 

Medical Histories on Scraps of Paper

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When the system works as designed, every mother receives a Child Health Card when her baby is born. Now, most mothers must track their infants’ medical histories on scraps of paper.

 

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Harare’s council clinics alone deliver more than 3,000 babies every month, with each mother left scrambling for documentation.

 

“I feel hurt,” Jowa says. “I want to know what vaccines my child has received and their purposes, but I just can’t get that information.”

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A nurse aide assistant at one of the council clinics has witnessed this shadow market.

 

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“If a nurse is selling, they ask the mother to be ‘skillful’ if they need the card,” says the assistant, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. In Zimbabwe, “skillful” is a common euphemism for paying small bribes.

 

While the Ministry of Health and Child Care is supposed to supply the cards for free, Prosper Chonzi, the City of Harare’s director of health, admits supplies have been erratic for six months and that people have complained about being forced to purchase these cards. Clinic workers may be exploiting the known shortage and coordinating among themselves to sell the cards rather than providing them for free, he says.

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“We can’t rule that out,” he says.

 

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The card shortage coincides with the quiet return of maternity fees in public hospitals. Though not officially announced, hospitals have begun billing mothers after delivery — a policy change the government would neither confirm nor deny.

 

High Inflation, More Corruption

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Between 2011 and 2024, more than 1 million pregnant women in the country delivered babies for free at health care clinics, under a scheme called results-based financing. Maternal mortality rates dropped during that time.

 

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But these gains, partly achieved through better access to safe delivery services, face new hurdles as budget constraints and economic pressures reshape the health care landscape.

 

Even in 2021, a study from Transparency International Zimbabwe surveyed over 1,000 people in Zimbabwe and found that 74% had been asked to pay a bribe while trying to access health care services. A feeling of being underpaid amidst a deteriorating economy and high inflation was a key driver among health workers who solicitated bribes, which has been a rising trend, according to the study.

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“The motivation for earning an extra income is strong especially in countries with a high rate of inflation,” the study states.

 

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Zimbabwe’s health care system faces chronic challenges, including an exodus of health workers to other countries, inadequate funding, drug shortages, obsolete infrastructure and more. In 1991, the government introduced user fees across public institutions as part of an economic structural adjustment program. The government abolished the fees in 2011, only to partially reinstate them around 2013.

 

Prudence Hanyani, a community activist in Harare, says the reintroduction of user fees in public hospitals will burden women who already shoulder extra costs, like paying for midwives, so they can get better treatment when giving birth.

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“Maternal health services should be free,” she says, “because giving birth is a service for the nation that contributes to the country’s population.”

 

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Mothers Pay the Price

 

Valerie Shangwa, who gave birth four and a half months ago at a private maternity hospital, still has no card for her daughter.

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“You know how difficult it is to keep a paper,” she says. “When nurses ask about last month’s weight, you end up guessing, and that distorts the whole record.”

 

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Charlton Prickise, technical director at Print Flow, says his company sells Child Health Cards only to government-authorized health facilities and faces no shortages.

 

“The shortages mean health facilities simply aren’t coming to get them,” he says.

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Though Print Flow hasn’t detected leaks, Prickise recalls finding other versions of this card on the market two years ago, possibly from a nongovernmental organization. Print Flow isn’t the sole supplier of the cards, and they haven’t received any government orders recently.

 

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In a written response to Global Press Journal, Donald Mujiri, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Child Care, said the shortage of Child Health Cards is due to supply chain inefficiencies and insufficient donor funding. The cards, he says, are procured with government funding and aid from supporting partners such as the United Nations Children’s Fund. Nevertheless, Mujiri says, the ministry needs to strengthen the supply chain management system at all levels and proactively mobilize resources for procuring the cards.

 

Meanwhile, mothers wait — or pay the price. Faith Musinami, 26, delivered her daughter in July 2024. An orderly told her the clinic only had cards for boys, but if she wanted, they could organize one for US$5. Musinami had not budgeted for the cost. She sacrificed the last penny she had.

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This story was originally published by Global Press Journal.

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