UK urged to help Rhodesia veterans ‘living in destitution’

HUNDREDS of Commonwealth veterans who fought for the Crown are living in destitution in Zimbabwe with the UK failing a “duty of honour” to support them, former ministers have warned.

Campaigners said they had little hope any change in Zimbabwe’s leadership triggered by this week’s military takeover would alleviate the veterans’ plight and instead called on the UK Government to ments” to them.

Around 600 surviving veterans of conflicts including the Second World War, Korea and Malaya have seen their pensions wiped out by hyperinflation and the economic policies of Robert Mugabe’s regime.

The “forgotten legion” of veterans in their 70s, 80s and 90s have been abandoned by the state and are now existing without medical care and scraping by on only a meal a day, according to a “honour campaign. Former ministers on Friday accused the Government of breaking its own military covenant by not supporting those who had fought on behalf of Britain. The veterans served with Rhodesian regiments on behalf of the Crown and were supported by the former Rhodesian government.

Iain Duncan Smith, the MP, said: “In its darkest hours of the last century, this country turned to men across the Commonwealth for help, signing them up to fight for the British Crown, most particularly during the Second World War. Many came from Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. They have been left destitute. When they signed up to serve the Crown, they did so in return for a promise that they would be cared for by the British government under the solemn oath of the military covenant. That promise must be fulfilled.”

The veterans are at the centre of a campaign by Zimbabwe A National Emergency, a charity raising money for pensioners in the country.