HARARE - A delegation of international figures led by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Monday Zimbabwe's crisis was worse than it had imagined, adding that the regional SADC grouping should act urgently to avert humanitarian disaster in the country.
Annan, former US President Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, who are part of a group of prominent figures and former statesmen called The Elders, planned to visit Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian situation but were refused entry.
The Elders however continued their assessment of Zimbabwe's escalating humanitarian crisis in Johannesburg, by meeting regional governments, political leaders, aid agencies, business and civil society representatives from Zimbabwe.
"We were expecting a gloomy situation, but the situation is far beyond what we could have imagined," Machel said.
President Robert Mugabe's government said it stopped The Elders' visit because it was ill timed coming when the country was busy with negotiations to form a government of national unity.
The Harare administration also said the visit by Annan's group was unnecessary because it had, with the help of UN agencies, already carried out a comprehensive assessment of the Zimbabwe's humanitarian needs.
But The Elders said Zimbabwe was in a far worse situation than the Harare authorities cared to admit.
Most public schools and hospitals in Zimbabwe had closed down, while hunger and disease ravaged the population, The Elders said, adding that Mugabe's government was either unaware of the suffering of the people or simply did not care.
"The leadership either has no clear picture of what is happening on the ground, or they just do not care about their people, otherwise they would do everything possible to stop the suffering and protect the people," they said.
The Elders called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to deal with the situation in Zimbabwe with a sense of urgency.
SADC's mediator on Zimbabwe former South African President Thabo Mbeki is due to meet Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party and the opposition MDC on Tuesday to review a draft constitutional Bill that would allow Mugabe to form a unity government outlined under a September 15 power-sharing agreement.
The power-sharing accord has stalled as the main formation of the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai and ZANU PF fight over control of key ministries, distribution of gubernatorial posts, ambassadorships and other top government posts.
South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said on Monday that a cholera outbreak that has killed 294 Zimbabweans to date showed the need for ZANU PF and MDC to end their political dispute in order to avert the total collapse of Zimbabwe.
Speaking after meeting Annan and his group, Motlanthe said: "Unless the root cause of the political absence of a legitimate government is solved, the humanitarian situation will get worse and will implode or collapse altogether."
South Africa's ruling ANC party leader Jacob Zuma also called on Zimbabwe's political rivals to put the interests of their people first by reaching agreement on a new government when they meet on Tuesday.
Zuma said: "The situation has just gone beyond a situation where we could say 'wait and see'. We are pleading to the leadership for the sake of the people to find a solution that would help them move forward."
Analysts say a power-sharing government could help ease the political situation and allow Zimbabweans to focus on tackling an economic crisis marked by the world's highest inflation rate of 231 million percent, severe shortages of food and basic commodities.