Operations at Zambia's biggest hospital -- the university teaching hospital in Lusaka -- are reported to have almost stopped after senior doctors failed to return to duty.

Continuing to press demands for the reinstatement of their junior colleagues who were sacked last week, the thirty-seven senior doctors today began withdrawing their labour; this follows a five-day break from work due to exhaustion.

Correspondents say both actions technically fall short of a strike, which might be illegal for the doctors.

The government sacked more than three hundred junior doctors last week for striking to press demands for better conditions and the provision of drugs in hospitals. A few expatriate doctors and consultants are still working at the hospital, but nurses said that the Cuban doctors flown in to help after the sacking of junior doctors last week were hampered by language problems.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service