An ex-convicted machete gang member recently released under a presidential amnesty aimed at easing congestion to reduce the threat of COVID-19 in the country’s overcrowded jails is alleged to have killed a miner in Norton.
Anerudo Mapuranga
According to Norton Miners Chairperson Mr Privelage Moyo, the deceased Mr Wonder Sithole was attacked by a machete-wielding criminal named Muhwa who was recently released from prison through the Presidential Amnesty program.
Muhwa according to Moyo is nursing his wounds at Norton Hospital.
“Wonder passed away after being attacked by machete gangs in Norton at Samoyo mining area. Information has it that the attacker, Muhwa, was attacked by a mob and he is in hospital at Norton together with the deceased. A police report was filed,” said Moyo.
Last year the Police managed to stop the activities of gangs armed with machetes and knobkerries countrywide, targeting mines and individuals keeping large amounts of cash, through the successful launch of “Operation Chikorokoza Ngachipere” and “No to Machete-Wielding Gangs”.
Criminal activities by the marauding gangs of machete attackers have seen reports of murder, rape, assault, housebreaking and stock theft rising in 2020. Police statistics show that in the mineral-rich Midlands Province reported criminal cases rose 33 per cent in the first nine months of 2019 because of the influx of machete attackers.
Recently British Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ms Melanie Robinson has commended the government for successfully taming machete-wielding gangs that had wreaked havoc in the country, especially in mining areas.
Mining communities around Zimbabwe were under siege from the marauding gangs that operated mainly in gold-rich districts unleashing violence on a scale never seen before.
From Mazowe in Mashonaland Central right through the Great Dyke in Midlands Province into Matabeleland South, gangs of men armed with machetes, axes, guns, and other deadly weapons had been on a warpath, committing heinous crimes such as armed robbery and murder.
High yielding small-scale gold mines, gold buyers, and stamp mills were their prime targets.