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Zimbabwe arrests 5 US health workers

Zimbabwean police have arrested five Americans in the capital Harare on the charge of dispensing medicine without proper licenses or authorization of a pharmacist.

The Americans – two doctors, two nurses and an organizer – brought AIDS drugs to the African country for supposed distribution among the poor but were arrested on Thursday and remained jailed in Harare on Saturday. A Zimbabwean doctor working with the Americans was also arrested, The New York Times reported.

The group, described in the report as health workers, is being held at Harare’s central police station and is to appear in a court on Monday.

Zimbabwe’s state-run newspaper The Herald reported that the six belong to the Allen Temple Baptist Church AIDS Ministry, based in Oakland, California.

According to its website, the faith-based organization provides HIV/AIDS medical treatment, life-saving HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral medication and prevention awareness education to Africans in grave need, as well as essential living support to orphaned children in Zimbabwe.

Various American churches are widely reported to dispatch missionaries to poverty-stricken regions of the world, aiming to convert people to Christianity while conducting aid work.

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