UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday painted a bleak picture of Zimbabwe, saying it has no functioning government while humanitarian conditions have severely deteriorated, dpa reported.
Ban reported to the UN Security Council that the political stalemate between President Robert Mugabe and opposition parties has paralyzed the country while epidemics of cholera and HIV/AIDS continue to kill Zimbabweans.
More than 3.5 million Zimbabweans now rely on food aid and the number will increase to 5.8 million by March, or more than half of the total population.
The World Health Organization reported 18,000 cases of cholera, which already killed nearly 1,000 people.
Ban said WHO expressed concern that cholera cases may climb to 60,000 because of rapidly deteriorating living conditions. Eighty per cent of the population has no access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities.
WHO reported that a total of 978 people have died of cholera and suspected cholera cases had risen to above 18,000, affecting nine of 10 provinces in Zimbabwe. It said half of all cholera cases are located in a suburb of Harare and a further 26 per cent of cases in a town bordering South Africa.
The epidemic has spread to South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.
WHO said the death rate in Zimbabwe from cholera stood at 5.3 per cent, which was considered high. It said for the disease to be under control, the death rate should be under 1 per cent.
The long-term problem of AIDS is also killing an estimated 2,000 people a week in Zimbabwe, Ban said.
"We continue to witness a failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe to address the political, economic, human rights and humanitarian crisis that is confronting the country and to do what is best for the people of Zimbabwe," Ban said.
"The people of Zimbabwe still do not have a government in place," Ban said, citing failure of power sharing between Mugabe and the opposition.
The UN had appealed for 317 million dollars to provide humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe in 2008 and 76 per cent of it has been funded. Ban said the UN plans to appeal for another 550 million dollars for 2009.
The human rights situation in that country is "grave," Ban said, citing killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, abductions and harassment of human rights defenders and opposition alike.
He called on the 15-nation council to alleviate the suffering of Zimbabweans and the first step would be to demand the formation of a government of national unity and access by relief groups into the country.