A HUMANITARIAN aid worker who was 'holed-up' in Zimbabwe amid the recent brutal crackdown on protestors is now back home in Poole.

Reverend Alan Clarredge, founder of the Rivers of Living Water Charity, was forced to keep a low profile as violence erupted across Zimbabwe's towns and cities.

He had been working to distribute aid and install water purification systems in the Bulawayo region, last month, when the trouble broke out.

Reports from human rights groups groups suggest at least a dozen people have been killed during protests, which were sparked after Zimbabwe's president Emmerson Mnangagwa – nicknamed The Crocodile – announced fuel prices would more than double.

Latest reports coming out of the African nation suggest the country's already inflated bread prices rose by 66 per cent at the beginning of this week.

Mr Clarredge, aged 78, from Rossmore Gospel Church, Poole, told the Echo he realised something unprecedented was taking place because of the huge queues at every petrol station he came across after arriving in Zimbabwe.

Fuel shortages, and the subsequent breakdown in public transport, forced the reverend to change his mercy mission's itinerary.

However, it didn't stop him managing to reach the town of Victoria Falls, where he installed a water purification system that will serve 31 hospitals.

Mr Clarredge said: "We were told not to go on the streets, not to go anywhere. I have to admit that when I got back to Bulawayo, I had to avoid the problems.

"The shops were shut, I couldn't get to many of the hospitals I wanted to, because of no transport and fuel.

"But I was able to go to another major hospital in Bulawayo district, I was able to repair their water supply, for about 2,000 patients."

This is the 25th year he has travelled to the country installing water purification systems and delivering urgent medical supplies to hospitals, health centres and orphanages.

"I've seen trouble there before, but never on this scale," he said. "I saw lots of shops that had been burned, now boarded up.

"For safety, I tried to keep to the villages, out of the city centre.

"I was watching all the time for trouble.

"A very small basket of shopping that would cost £5 here, was 45 US dollars out there.

"There were no banks open, no cashpoints working. I had to carry everything I would use.

"It was a year ago since I'd been out, but the country seems to have gone downhill considerably.

"They are harder up now then they have ever been, it is just a pity."