Agence France-Presse reports Now the town is coming back, centered on an orphanage taking in children whose parents have often died of AIDS
Swaziland has the world's highest rate of HIV infection, with at least one in four adults carrying the virus. A crushing financial crisis has left the tiny southern African monarchy struggling to pay for medicines and for orphans' education.
About 120,000 children have been orphaned in Swaziland, comprising more than 10 percent of the total population. Those startling statistics inspired Canadian entrepreneur Volker Wagner to buy the entire town of Bulembu in 2006, five years after it was abandoned.
He has created a private community, a sort of "Christian kolkhoz", which is developing around the orphanage that now houses 303 children, aged from two weeks to 21 years. Continue reading.
