The United Nations body dedicated to the world's poor children Thursday told Western nations they were punishing Zimbabwe's children by withholding aid from President Robert Mugabe's government. "The children are being sanctioned, if you will, by donor concern about the government," Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), told journalists in Johannesburg. Western governments began cutting financial aid to Zimbabwe in 2000 after Mugabe launched a campaign of violent repression against his opponents. During the campaign, Mugabe drove the country's productive white farming community from their land, precipitating an unprecedented economic crisis and widespread poverty. Bellamy said UNICEF was "profoundly concerned" by the stark contrast in aid funding for Zimbabwe and its neighbours in Southern Africa. "Despite the world's fourth worst rate of HIV and AIDS and a very significant increase in child mortality rates since 1990, Zimbabwe is receiving a mere fraction of the assistance being received by its neighbouring countries," she said. --More 2353 Local Time 2053 GMT
