The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has blocked aid from South African churches for victim’s of the Zimbabwean government’s slum demolition programme.

The shipment of clothes was blocked after weeks of battling with the country’s import authorities, and will now be donated to Zimbabwean migrants living in South Africa instead, reports Ekklesia.

The Rev Gift Moerane, provisional organising secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), told ZimOnline earlier in the week of the bureaucracy which has prevented them from delivering much-needed aid.

“The paperwork and all the procedures at the border were strenuous. In a meeting last week, we agreed that it was better to focus on Zimbabwean refugees who are based here because they are also living in dire straits,” said Moerane, as he delivered clothes to more than 300 Zimbabwean migrants at the Yeoville Recreational Centre in Johannesburg.

The SACC accused the government in Zimbabwe in August of deliberately obstructing the entry of aid trucks to the country.

The Council had been attempting, since 1 August, to deliver two trucks of aid, including food and 6,000 blankets, to the homeless and dispossessed victims of the demolitions.

The Mugabe government has still failed to act on a request by the UN for the world body to raise 30 million US dollars worth of aid for the victims of the demolitions.