Reconstructing Zimbabw may cost as much as US$5 billion (€4 billion), Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday as he opened his hands to neighbouring countries.

Mr Tsvangirai was speaking after meeting South African President Kgalema Motlanthe who has convened the region's finance ministers next week to devise a plan to assist their starving and desperate neighbour.

"What we are looking for is a short-term intervention to make sure we are jump-starting those institutions that affect people," Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Cape Town. Mr Tsvangirai, who joined a historic unity government last week with his bitter rival, President Robert Mugabe, warned that long-term reconstruction could "run into billions of dollars, maybe as high as five billion. Our situation is dire. The key priority areas are food, health and education."

Schools in Zimbabwe are shut, its economy lies shattered after 29 years of Mugabe rule, and its health care system is struggling to cope with a cholera epidemic that has claimed more than 3,750 lives.