In November 2017, bread was $0.90. It is now $70 as inflation rages at 837%. Contrast this with the 5% inflation projected by govt. When you project 5% inflation and end up with 837%, you are in crisis. As this thread will show, Zimbabwe meets any definition of crisis. 1/18

Inflation has wiped out salaries and pensions with government workers earning as little as $3,000 (US$30). Nurses and doctors are on strike, protesting poor pay and working conditions. Police have reacted violently to peaceful protests by nurses who demanding better pay. 2/18

The result is an almost total collapse of the healthcare system. Last month seven babies were stillborn at a Harare Central Hospital in a single night. Urgent treatment was unavailable due to the strike. Doctors have no PPE and those who do turn up resort to bed linen. 3/18

Meanwhile, water supply has collapsed in towns and cities due to years of neglect. Many parts of the capital Harare are without water and residents have turned to boreholes. Those who do receive water risk their lives drinking it as it is unsafe, in Bulawayo some died. 4/18

The WFP anticipates that the number of food insecure people in Zimbabwe will surge by 50% to 8.6 million, which is 60% of the population. Malnutrition related diseases such as pellagra have doubled in the last twelve months. 5/18

The hunger is not limited to rural areas. Urban areas are now also relying on food aid from international donors while primitive soup kitchens are popping up with some feeding over 2,000 people per day. 6/18

Fuel shortages are a perennial reality. Queues stretching kilometres are not an uncommon site. So persistent is the problem that it no longer makes front page headlines. At the heart of the problem are inefficiencies created by cartels that control the industry. 7/18

Transport is now a significant problem after govt suddenly suspended all private transport operators and handed a monopoly a businessman who is leasing buses to the state-owned bus company. 8/18

With a 6PM to 6AM curfew, imposed by the increasingly paranoid govt which fears an uprising, those who fail to find transport on time, and miss the 6PM curfew, are brutally assaulted by soldiers. This man was savagely beaten for being late. 9/18

Soldiers and police are not immune to the economic crisis and now resort to extorting bribes from the public. Recently, a woman in labour was held up at a roadblock as police demanded a US$5 bribe from her husband. 10/18

The result has been a mass exodus with an estimated 2-3 million Zimbabweans leaving the country. Those who remain are faced by a brutal system of repression which is well aware of its failures and vulnerability. Dissent is not tolerated. 11/18

In January 2019, at least 17 people were killed by security forces, dozens of women raped, and hundreds beaten as security forces went door to door seeking out their victims as retribution for protests triggered by a dramatic fuel price increase. 12/18

Govt has denied involvement in the abuses, accusing a third force of working to sully its reputation. There have been no arrests. In February 2019 a hit squad was arrested but quickly released it threatened to expose senior officials who had sanctioned their work. 13/18

Dozens of opposition supporters and pro-democracy activists have been abducted and tortured. Govt accuses them of staging the abductions despite the clear injuries suffered by the abductees. 14/18

The courts are equally captured and routinely deny government critics bail on the most trivial of offenses, that often fail at trial, yet grant bail without incident to government and ruling party officials implicated in serious crimes. 15/18

Despite the constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, police continue to arrest those who dare criticise the President, relying on an unconstitutional law that classifies such criticism as undermining the authority of the president. The objective is to silence critics. 16/18

Govt routinely threatens the public with violence, warning would-be protestors that the army, which is “trained to kill”, will be deployed without hesitation. The recommendations of a commission of enquiry into the killing of six unarmed civilians have been ignored. 17/18

It is difficult to imagine that this all happens in one country, yet the above examples are merely a tip of the iceberg, Zimbabwe is truly in crisis. 18/18