The International Red Cross Society along with other human rights groups have in recent months committed assistance to cover food, medical care and other basic facilities to rescue prisoners who faced death as prison authorities had run out of funds to meet the running costs.

Administration at Zimbabwe's prisons had been undercut by years of political and economic turmoil before a coalition government was formed a few months back following a disputed election in March 2008, but rights groups hope their direct initiatives will help alleviate the appalling state of affairs suffered by detainees.

Thomas Merkelbach, head of the Red Cross in Harare said his team was working closely with authorities to improve the situation at the country's jails that are touted to be among the worst in the world. Six German doctors on a voluntary mission through the organization offered free medical attention to sick inmates and other prison officials at Chikurubi Maximum, Harare Cental, Mutare, and Khami prisons within five days last week.

"The conditions of the prisons in Zimbabwe are dire. We have a desperate situation which is characterised by deaths due to malnutrition and complications also arising from malnutrition mainly," Jesse Majome, the deputy Justice Minister from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) wing in the current unity government said.

Statistics by prisoner rehabilitation charities say that 20 inmates die due to illness, particularly HIV-related or hunger per day. So far over 1000 fatalities have been recorded since the beginning of 2009.

A team of investigative journalists from South Africa recently successfully compiled video footage exposing the horrible conditions at a prison in Zimbabwe that was broadcast worldwide.

The audiovisual images of male prisoners who looked skinny and too weak to stand in the documentary Hell Hole, was shown by the South African Broadcasting Authority (SABC) on 31 March 2009.It was secretly filmed at Beitbridge prison by inmates over a four-month period at the instruction of Godknows Nare, a Zimbabwean national and one member of the SABC’s Special Assignment team, over a four-month period.

A top MDC official Roy Bennett , also Zimbabwe’s deputy Minister of Agriculture who was re-detained on flimsy political grounds for four weeks at Mutare prison in February after another incarceration in 2005, warned that conditions at the prison were his “worst prison experience ever” as inmates were dying of hunger and disease each day. He described people he shared a cell with as “walking skeletons”.

;There are people there who look worse than the photographs of people in Dachau and Auschwitz”, said Bennett .He added that prisoners who survived starvation were those lucky to have relatives who brought them food.