Lithuania seizes shipment of fire trucks to Zimbabwe

Lithuania is holding onto 17 fire engines seized in 2021 while being shipped to Zimbabwe from neighbouring Belarus which is under European Union sanctions, officials said on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe's new attorney general Virginia Mabhiza, appointed last September, flew to the small European country earlier this year on a mission to get the trucks released but her efforts were in vain, ZimLive was told.

Information secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana said the government was still appealing to the Lithuanians to release the fire tenders.

"We eagerly await the release of the fire tenders. These fire engines will be critical in supporting firefighting operations, protecting life and property as well as preserving Zimbabwe's world heritage sites and the crucial crops that defied the devastating drought," Mangwana said.

Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Sweden who also oversees Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and Norway is understood to have also been engaged in meetings with the Lithuanians to free the trucks acquired by the local government ministry, then headed by July Moyo.

The trucks were supplied by a company called Red Lion under an opaque deal engineered by Belarusian arms dealer Alexander Zingman.

The fire tenders were being delivered through Lithuania to a port on the Baltic Sea from landlocked Belarus when they were seized.

Belarus is under European Union sanctions since 2020 over human rights abuses under its tyrannical leader Aleksandr Lukashenko.

During the same period, the EU also had targeted sanctions on Zimbabwean officials and certain companies, but these did not cover trade in non-lethal equipment

The Zimbabwe government argues that the Lithuanians have no legal basis to be holding onto the trucks.

Lithuania's foreign ministry has not responded to our questions over the seizure of the fire trucks.