Chamisa blames Mnangagwa after 3 MDC activists suffered horrific sex abuse

By Staff Reporter

Opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa says three of their youth leaders including an MP who disappeared on Wednesday after an anti-government protest, before being found “badly tortured” on Thursday night, suffered horrific sexual abuse in the hands of their abductors.

Chamisa was speaking after visiting Harare West MP Joanah Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova at Parktown Hospital in Harare.

According to the trio they were first detained at Harare Central Police Station, later blindfolded before being driven out of Harare and thrown into a pit where they were subjected to torture.

“This is inhuman and degrading treatment. This is torture against girl children, torture against the country. Assuming that they had committed a crime, they were supposed to be taken to a police station, tried and sentenced. But this is a continuation of an ugly past,” Chamisa said.

“You won’t believe it. They are shaking. They are so scared when you open the door, they feel like running away. Cecilia said she can identify one of the suspected state agents who used a gun through their annal passage. It is unheard-of.”

“They said, ‘we know that you are being sponsored as MDC to cause mayhem, and we want to fix you’,” Chamisa recalled being told by the women.

“Mr Mnangagwa is aware of these things because the same pattern has been used for the past years. We have seen that across 2019, crocodile prints are all over and he cannot deny it,” Chamisa told journalists.

“They have the audacity to lie to the entire world that this is self-inflicted, and it is false abductions, when it is so clear that those who doing it are doing so on behalf of Mnangagwa,” he charged.

“This evil is persisting because we as Zimbabwe have not come out to say enough is enough,” he said. “What we saw is so disturbing. It is embarrassing that a man would tie women up in sacks and go on to suck their breasts while assaulting them for the entire night.”

According to party deputy spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka; “They are in very bad shape and they have told horrendous tales of torture and abuse. Hon. Mamombe and Netsai Marova are having difficulty in walking while Cecilia Chimbiri is complaining of severe head pains.”

Tamborinyoka said “after receiving a distress phone call from the dumped cadres who had been accommodated by a sympathetic villager in Muchapondwa, a group of MDC officials that included Secretary for Welfare Maureen Kademaunga and deputy Organising secretary Happymore Chidziva immediately alerted lawyers and the police and drove to the area in Bindura South where they found the three cadres in very bad shape. They are heavily traumatised.”

“They were found dumped near Muchapondwa shops, popularly known as “paSupa”.

“According to the party’s rescue team that drove to Bindura with lawyers and the police , the three ladies said they were first taken to Harare Central Police station after being “arrested.”

“They were later taken from the police station and were driven away in a black Wish vehicle. The men who drove them away covered the ladies’ faces with what looked like sacks. They remember being taken to a forest and being put in a pit where they were brutally assaulted.

“They are telling horrendous stories of abuse and humiliation that include being forced to eat human excreta. They are currently checking into a medical facility , under the close watch of MDC officials, a team of lawyers and some nine police officers from the Law and Order section.

The trio went missing on Wednesday after they had staged an anti-government protest against the poor handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the country. The police first confirmed their arrest then made a U-turn claiming they had not arrested them. Nehanda Radio