Zimbabwe holds funeral for seven victims of election violence
A week after its historic presidential elections, Zimbabweans have
begun mourning the dead as seven people lost their lives on Wednesday,
August 1, when the military opened fire on protesters in the streets of
the capital Harare.
Opposition supporters had come out to protest the long wait for the
election results, which they feared were being manipulated. This
weekend, friends and relatives of those who had died in the clashes
gathered to mourn their loved ones.
Draped in white lace and accompanied by mourners crying and singing,
Sylvia Maphosa’s coffin was heaved into the funeral van. “She was
killed by the criminals in the government,” one man cried through a car
window, as the convoy made its way to the cemetery. The civil servant,
Sylvia Maphosa, was shot in the back. She was trying to make her way
home after leaving her office at the Zimbabwe National Water Authority
in Harare’s city center.
According to her family’s lawyer, police initially recorded the cause
of her death as a stab wound. After protest from her family, the
police corrected it to gunshot wound. Apart from the man in the car,
however, nobody at the funeral talked about who was to blame for her
death.
Vegetable seller and father of four, Ishmael Kumire, had a similar
fate. “He was standing five meters from me and suddenly I heard
gunshots. I thought they were firing rubber bullets,” Kumire’s
brother-in-law Ignatious Neshava said. According to him, Kumire even
supported the ruling party. He had been trying to protect his goods when
the soldiers came. President Emmerson Mnangagwa called the death of
the seven people a tragedy and called for an independent investigation
into Wednesday’s events.
No comments
Your comments and Encouragement are welcome