Woman commits suicide after humiliated & refused ZPF food aid

A woman from Mutasa Central constituency in Manicaland province took her own life on Tuesday after she was publicly humiliated and refused permission to buy cheap food packets at a government food distribution programme in her village. The mother of three, identified as Mai Tarwa, joined a throng of
roughly a thousand people at the Moyoweshumba primary school where goods,supplied by ZANU-PF under the Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention (Bacossi) were under distribution.
 
Wellington Zindove, a co-ordinator for the Zimbabwe Youth Forum, told Newsreel on Thursday the village headman who was leading the food distribution process identified the woman as a known MDC supporter and stripped her naked in front of the crowd, in an effort to force her to denounce the party. Zindove said the woman was “humiliated and devastated because she failed to condemn herself”. She was then refused Bacossi goods and fled to her homestead, where her body was found later in the day hanging
from a tree.
 
The poorest of the poor are bearing the brunt of the economic meltdown in Zimbabwe, with basic commodities becoming luxury items in terms of cost and availability. MDC supporters in rural areas have also often been forced to give up their food and livestock to marauding ZANU-PF thugs. The situation
has left tens of thousands of people dependent on any form of food aid,however, with the government blocking international food aid, people such as Mai Tarwa are forced to rely on Bacossi or face starvation.
 
Zindove said the “continued victimisation of MDC supporters in the rural areas” is unacceptable, particularly with regards to Bacossi food aid. He said ZANU supporters are “the only ones benefiting from Bacossi” and called it a “partisan campaign to thank those responsible for the violence”. He added in a Youth Forum statement released on Thursday that given the country’s economic meltdown, selectively refusing to give people basic food is a tactic that has “increased the vulnerability of 80% of the population to hunger and poverty”.
 
SWRadio Africa