MUZARABANI – Mercy Chiusaru is six years old. When I meet her she is settling down for the night in the tall grass by the side of a road in Muzarabani. It is a chilly night, and her father, Clever Chiusaru covers her with a thin sheet.
Her sister, Taizivel, aged eight, left the family farm to go to school that morning. Then the Zanu-PF militia arrived, and drove the family out. Taizivel hasn’t been seen since.
Clever Chiusaru says:Â “I don’t know if I will ever see her again. I dare not go back to the farm – they will kill me.” Chiusaru voted MDC in the elections.
A few yards away Mbuya Manjazi, who is a frail 74, wraps herself in a threadbare towel before trying to sleep. She too was driven from her home.
I don’t have anywhere to go,” she says, shivering visibly. “I have lived at the farm for my whole life. This cold will kill me tonight.”
A few yards away Tendai Meza is crying. She is two months old, and has spent the day on her mother’s back. Now she is tired and hungry.
Tendai’s mother, Tracy, says: “Of course she is hungry. My breasts have no more milk for her. We have had nothing to eat today.”
I count 60 people who will spend the night in the tall grass. Most of them want me to go away, in case I draw attention to them. They are very frightened.
This is Zimbabwe today. This is the country where we are asked to take part in the re-run of an election that has already been fairly won.
This is the country whose neighbouring states know how we suffer, but cling to ancient loyalties and do nothing to help.
This is the country where, despite vivid evidence of cruelty and murder, the United Nations refuses to intervene.
Tracy and baby Tendai, grandmother Mbuya Manjazi, and Clever Chiusaru and his daughter Mercy, are on their own in the tall grass tonight. And no-one knows if eight-year-old Taizivel Chiusaru is alive or dead. – Zimbabwe Metro
Post published in: News