cc Economic sanctions against Zimbabwe are worsening the plight of ordinary citizens in an already harsh climate and should be lifted immediately, urges an ‘Appeal for Zimbabwe’ launched in Mali in February. Signatories to the petition declared that drinkable water, food and medicine must ‘cease to be deployed as weapons of war’, and reminded the UK, the US and the EU ‘of the exorbitant social and human cost of the punitive measures’ they have used in a bid to drive regime change in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is grappling with 94 per cent unemployment, the highest inflation rates in the world and food shortages affecting an estimated seven million people.