HARARE - Zimbabwe has appealed for help for its prisoners after a documentary exposed horrific conditions in the country's jails, the film's producer says.

Shot secretly over months, a South African TV documentary reveals how dozens of inmates in Zimbabwe die every day of starvation and disease.

Several of those featured in the film, which was aired on Tuesday, have died.

The film's producer, Johann Abrahams, told the BBC the Zimbabwean government was now "appealing for donor aid".

Zimbabwe's new national unity government has so far not officially commented on the film.

Meanwhile, in his first newspaper article since taking office, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai urged donors and trading partners to back the government.

The film also showed how prison staff had converted cells to "hospital wards" for the dying.

It said makeshift mortuaries had been built within the prison grounds, where bodies of inmates "rotted on the floor with maggots moving all around".

Inmates in the documentary were shown suffering from starvation and diseases as a result of living in unhygienic conditions in overcrowded prisons.

He said Zimbabwe looked forward to moving beyond merely being a beneficiary of emergency aid to a time when it could be viewed as an investment opportunity to the West.