MDC activist dies after being savagely assaulted by Zanu-PF youths

AN MDC Alliance activist has succumbed to injuries he sustained during a vicious attack by Zanu-PF youths at an event attended by the party's leader Nelson Chamisa in Gutu, Masvingo recently.

Zanu-PF supporters have over the past few months fought violent running battles with their MDC rivals as they seek to prevent Chamisa from holding his provincial meetings across the country.

Nyasha Zhambe Mawere, a Gutu villager, was seized by alleged Zanu-PF youth league members who besieged him and his colleagues as they followed party Chamisa last month.

He was left for dead, and sympathisers took him to Gutu District Rural Hospital where he was admitted, treated before being transferred to Harare where he eventually died Friday.

"It is a pain that his life was cut short because he expressed his constitutional right of supporting a party of his choice," the MDC Alliance's Masvingo province said in a statement.

Before Mawere left Gutu, his colleagues had accompanied him to make a police report, which however has not resulted in any arrests.

Police officers in Gutu are said to have initially told him to leave before giving in to pressure and receiving the report that implicated a local Zanu-PF member identified as Baster Mafio.

Masvingo Police spokesperson Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa said he did not know anything as was out of the province and referred all questions to his superior Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi, whose cell phone rang all day unanswered.

"I do not have that information; I am out of the province. May you get in touch with the national spokesperson, he might be of assistance," said Dhewa.

MDC Alliance deputy spokesperson Ostallos Gift Siziba warned Zanu-PF was only just getting started.

"It is clear to those who were doubting, the writing is on the wall, Zanu-PF is going to be as violent as ever because citizens have rejected Zanu-PF and Emmerson Mnangagwa and the language they understand is to unleash terror," Siziba said.

"It is clear that we are under a fascist military regime, presided over by trigger happy elements like Mnangagwa who unleash terror on citizens simply because they choose to associate with a party of their choice."

Zhambe will be buried at Matungamidzi village under Chief Mawere in Gutu Saturday.