Ahead of elections slated for next year, Mugabe’s supporters have intensified a witch-hunt of perceived opposition members.
As regional leaders met in South Africa over the weekend, soldiers and youth militia carried out a door-to-door purge of MDC supporters in the rural area.
In the past week alone five people have reported being severely beaten and ordered to "surrender." Scores of villagers have fled into hiding.
MDC supporters said the crackdown has been steadily escalating since the MDC congress and described witnessing a cavalcade of Mugabe supporters stream through the village carrying a coffin with Tsvangirai’s name on it.
MDC supporters have been ordered to surrender all the regalia they received at the congress.
A district MDC official, who declined to be named fearing reprisals, said people were huddled inside a modest, four-bedroom house in the area with women and children sleeping in cramped rooms, while men slept in the long grass by the maize patch.
"Our lives are in danger,” the district official said. “They want to attack us."
A local general dealer, hiding bruises with thick make-up, told The Zimbabwean****** that 10 days ago a gang of youths from Zanu (PF) stoned her pick-up truck, looted her shop and beat her.
"They told me to leave Zimbabwe and go to Britain," she said.
Human rights groups say several people are on the run across the province, with some being sought by the Central Intelligence.
The district official said many were hiding from the beatings, torture and feared killings.
"Some of our members have been abducted and taken to one of their 'Taliban camps' where they were tortured and told to surrender," he said.
"We have not committed any crime; we are just working for democracy. In those torture camps they do inhuman things."
He vowed to return to Zvimba and get police to search for the missing
"We are being hunted down. Anyone suspected of supporting the MDC, it is terrible," he said
"It is frightening. We don't know when they will attack us again." – Chief reporter
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga