A South African civil activist has warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Musina if the SA government does not seriously deal with the issue of Zimbabwean refugees.

"Solidarity is needed as much in Musina as it is in even the worst places in Zimbabwe itself," said Nomboniso Gasa, chair of the Commission for Gender Equality in South Africa.

She was speaking at a news briefing called by the ‘Save Zimbabwe Now’ campaign, held at the Constitution Hill in Johannesburg this week.

She quoted the Doctors Without Borders organisation as reporting that "respiratory diseases are on the rise, and the presence of dysentery with bleeding, combined with inadequate health services and the intense overcrowding, suggests that unless the infrastructure is put in place now, another epidemic is almost inevitable".

Gasa was on the 14th day of her 21-day hunger strike in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe (as at Tuesday 24 Feb 09).

She visited the Musina showgrounds over the weekend, where the Zimbabwean refugees are staying.

Musina, in Limpopo province, is facing a serious health and humanitarian challenge after the town was flooded with Zimbabwean refugees fleeing the economic and health crises in that country, with some of the refugees suffering from conditions such as cholera, she said.

She also claimed that there was a silence around the rape of women and young girls, and asserted that the dehumanizing violence that has become part of the lives of so many women cannot be allowed to continue.

A report compiled by the Save Zimbabwe Now campaign describes desperate conditions that the close to 4,000 refugees exist in, where they have to eat and sleep next to rotting garbage and sewage.

The report states: "The toilets are clearly not cleaned daily and cannot cope with the ever-increasing levels of human waste, nor are the ablution stations adequate for the needs of this growing population. Non-governmental organisations and churches have provided 13 toilets to service approximately 4,000 people.

"In a town that has so recently come out of a near-critical cholera crisis," the report continues, "one would think that preventative measures would be put in place in an attempt to stop the continuing influx of potentially infested refugees from Zimbabwe".

Nombuso also spoke about the struggles around ’this paper that eveybody’s life is dependent on - the assylum papers’. And said that many women find themselves in a difficult situation where they are forced to have sex with officials in order to get those papers.

"The fact that those papers often never come after that particular sexual exchange, those women are not in a position to really question it," Nombuso said.

Gasa said the collective solidarity effort is also aimed at drawing attention to the kinds of conditions faced by people, and exposing the human impact of political horse trading.

SADC - ’Save Zimbabwe Now’ is watching you