FORGOTTEN: When AIDS was killing Blacks like flies – The Cardboard Coffin boom

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[This is one of the few news articles I could find from 2001. In the mid to late 1990s, Blacks in southern Africa were dropping dead like flies. Panic was sweeping through their society, and everywhere the funeral businesses were booming like crazy. Although they like to say that South Africa was the hardest hit, you must keep in mind that it is only in South Africa that people have accurate statistics. In places further north like Zimbabwe and Zambia, Blacks were dying like crazy. Sadly, I don't have any of the newsletters I had from back then, because the statistics were amazing. Then the West came and saved their worthless lives. AIDS still kills Blacks. But if it wasn't for the West, probably most of Africa would have been totally depopulated by now. Blacks were dying so fast back then, that they began to make cardboard coffins in other Black countries because it was so much cheaper. The death rate in Zimbabwe (former Rhodesia) in 2001 was 300 dead a day in a population of 13 million according to this news report. But I'm sure I heard much higher numbers. And there were Whites around in Zimbabwe and Zambia who saw some crazy stuff. Jan]

Coffin thefts escalating

Beitbridge, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwean police Thursday reported that the continuing Aids epidemic has prompted a spate of ghoulish grave-robbing as thieves seek to meet soaring demand for coffins.

A police spokesperson told state radio 15 paupers’ coffins, supplied by local municipal authority and costing less than 10 dollars each, had been stolen from the cemetery at Dulibadzimu township outside this border town, which has one of the highest rates of infection and death from Aids in the country.

The disinterred corpses had been dumped in nearby bush, creating a health hazard.

Police hope to track down the culprits, believed to be from the western city of Bulawayo, said a broadcast.

In Harare, manufacturers are doing a brisk trade in cardboard coffins using the sales slogan: "Bury your loved one, not your financial future."

Due to the prevalence of prostitution and cross-border traffic, Beitbridge has one of the worst Aids tolls in a country where at least 300 a day are estimated to be dying of diseases related to the HIV virus.

Health Minister Timothy Stamps said at the weekend that the population growth rate, once 5 per cent, was expected to fall to zero next year as a result of the Aids pandemic.

Since 1920 Zimbabwe’s population has increased from 900 000 to 13 million, exacerbating demand for land and natural resources.

However, agricultural experts say areas of the 20 million hectare communal lands are beginning to be left uncultivated due to shortage of labour caused either directly by Aids deaths or by able-bodied people having to go to commercial farming areas to earn cash to pay for lavish funerals, considered an essential mark of respect for the dead. – Sapa-DPA

Source: https://www.news24.com/news24/xarchive/archive/coffin-thefts-escalating-20010607

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