Zimbabwe’s High Inflation Takes Toll on Population

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• GWEN IFILL:

  Now, a report on the struggle to survive in Zimbabwe. Under the authoritarian rule of President Robert Mugabe, this African country has been hit by sky-high inflation, and government and private services are breaking down. Some of the faces in this piece are obscured to protect the interviewees from possible government reprisals. From Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, we have a report from Mark Austin of Independent Television News.

• MARK AUSTIN, ITV News Correspondent:

  Dawn in Harare, and the few lucky enough to have jobs begin the daily commute. It is on foot, often for several miles. There's no affordable petrol, so no transport.

  In the townships they have left behind, they are also walking for miles. The search is on for water, any water to keep their families alive. Zimbabwe is running out of almost everything; now it's running out of the most precious commodity on Earth.

  In some places, wells are dug close to raw sewage seeping from cracked pipes. This is a broken country of broken people.

  Sixty-six-year-old Agnes Mapango doesn't have much to sing about. She's had no running water for three weeks now. This is a grandmother who deals family death certificates like playing cards.

• ZIMBABWEAN GRANDMOTHER:

  One, two, three…