Zimbabwean journalist shot dead in SA

South AFRICAN-BASED Zimbabwean journalist, Mike Chimombe, was fatally shot in Cape Town on Sunday in a horrific robbery where his assailants also took away his vehicle.

Chimombe (37), was the first son of veteran journalist and farmer Emilia Zindi.

A devastated Zindi said her son, who was due to return home permanently in August, was shot after he refused to hand over his car keys to the robbers.

"I am told, on Sunday around 6pm he drove home and parked by the gate to open it. As he went back to his car, three guys had jumped into the vehicle. One of them was already on the steering wheel. As he tried to wrestle them out, one shot him before driving off," she said.

The car was recovered a few kilometres away from the scene, she said.
"He had earlier told me he wanted to finish the instalment for his car in August and then come home permanently. It was so near, yet so far," Zindi said in tears.

"We are working on repatriating his body. We are not sure of the burial dates yet, but we need R20 000 to get his body to Beitbridge from where our funeral house will take over."

A 2002 Harare Polytechnic journalism graduate, Chimombe did his internship at The Herald.

After failing to secure employment in the country, he joined the great trek to the neighbouring country.

Veteran journalists who are on a social platform with Zindi, consoled their colleague who during an interview was besides herself with grief and pain.

"We will continue to lose our children to these violent deaths because some selfish politicians fail to sort the mess they created. We have lost . . . loved ones and our dignity to misrule pioneered by (former President) Robert Mugabe and we need a break," said one veteran journalist.

Chimombe is one of the many Zimbabweans to meet a violent end in South Africa particularly in Cape Town where people can be killed for mobile phones.