Free Republic

JOHANNESBURG — Lungile Khoza is at her wits' end. The mother of four has been without water at her home for three weeks, the kids are dehydrated and sick, and she can't run her small hair salon so she's losing money. Khoza, 37, lives in Soweto, a sprawling township of Johannesburg, which is among the areas worst hit by a water crisis in the city. She says there are sometimes government trucks distributing water, but it often runs out before you make it to the front of the line. Then she says, the water seems to cause stomach problems for...

Johannesburg - Young women used iron rods to beat pleading grandmothers and called them whores, while a policewoman shouted "Now go for the heads!" This is how a prayer meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, turned into an "orgy of violence", says William Bango, 53, a senior Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) member and spokesperson for party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Bango told Beeld from his Johannesburg hospital bed how he, Tsvangirai and other MDC members were beaten with "unheard of cruelty" by Zimbabwean police on Sunday March 11. Bango described seeing a grandmother, 64-year-old Sekai Holland, repeatedly hammered with a pole by...