Tag Archives: Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe appears in public for first time since army took charge

Zimbabwe's Mugabe appears in public for first time since army took charge

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe appeared in public on Friday for the first time since the army took charge this week, as the ruling party made plans to force him to step down after more than three decades in power.

Mugabe, who is 93, opened a graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe Open University in Harare. He wore blue and yellow academic robes and a mortar board hat and appeared to fall asleep in his chair as his eyes closed and his head lolled.

Mugabe led the country’s liberation struggle and has dominated its politics since independence in 1980. He said he is still in charge but a senior member of the ZANU-PF ruling party said it wanted him gone.

“If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday,” the source said. “When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday.”

In contrast, the military said in a statement on national television it was “engaging” with Mugabe. It referred to him as Commander in Chief and said it would announce an outcome as soon as possible.

Mugabe is revered as an elder statesman and member of the generation of Africa’s independence leaders but he is also viewed by many in Africa as a president who held his country back by remaining in power too long. He calls himself the grand old man of African politics.

Zimbabwe’s official newspaper, the Herald, ran photographs late on Thursday showing him grinning and shaking hands with military chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who seized power this week.

The images stunned Zimbabweans who thought it meant Mugabe was managing to hold out against Chiwenga’s coup, with some political sources saying he was trying to delay his departure until elections scheduled for next year.

The ZANU-PF source said that was not the case. Anxious to avoid a protracted stalemate, party leaders were drawing up plans to dismiss Mugabe at the weekend if he refused to quit, the source said.

“There is no going back,” the source told Reuters. “It’s like a match delayed by heavy rain, with the home side leading 90-0 in the 89th minute.”

The army is camped on his doorstep. His wife, Grace, is under house arrest, and her key political allies are in military custody. The police, once a bastion of support, have showed no signs of resistance.

Furthermore, he has little popular backing in the capital, a stronghold of support for opposition parties that have tapped into the anger and frustration at his handling of the economy, which collapsed after the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000.

Unemployment is now running at nearly 90 percent and chronic shortages of hard currency have triggered hyperinflation, with the prices of imports rising as much as 50 percent a month.

The only words Mugabe spoke at the graduation ceremony were met with ululations from the crowd. In a telling irony, one of the graduates was the wife of Chiwenga.

“A NEW ERA”

The United States, a longtime Mugabe critic, is seeking “a new era”, the State Department’s top official for Africa said, an implicit call for Mugabe to quit.

In an interview with Reuters, acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto appeared to dismiss the idea of keeping Mugabe in an interim or ceremonial role.

“It’s a transition to a new era for Zimbabwe, that’s really what we’re hoping for,” Yamamoto said.

The army appears to want Mugabe to go quietly and allow a smooth and bloodless transition to Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president, whose sacking last week triggered the military takeover.

The main goal of the generals is to prevent Mugabe from handing power to his wife, Grace, who appeared on the cusp of power after Mnangagwa was pushed out.

Dumiso Dabengwa, a former head of intelligence and a Mnangagwa ally, is due to hold a news conference in Johannesburg.

A South African government source said he expected Dabengwa to discuss the events in Zimbabwe.

“It seems there is some sort of agreement,” the source said.

Zimbabwe’s struggling economy: http://tmsnrt.rs/2zN0EdF

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley in Johannesburg and Warren Strobel in Washington; Writing by Ed Cropley and James Macharia; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Zimbabwe’s army seizes power, Mugabe confined but “safe”

Zimbabwe's army seizes power, Mugabe confined but "safe"

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s military seized power on Wednesday saying it was holding President Robert Mugabe and his family safe while targeting “criminals” in the entourage of the man who has ruled the nation since independence 37 years ago.

Soldiers seized the state broadcaster and a general appeared on television to announce the takeover. Armored vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby. The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.

In his first contact with the outside world since the takeover, Mugabe spoke by telephone to the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him he was confined to his home but fine, the South African presidency said in a statement.

It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to the 93-year-old Mugabe’s rule; the main goal of the generals appeared to be preventing Mugabe’s wife Grace, 41 years his junior, from succeeding him.

But whether or not he goes, it may mark the end of the country’s dominance by Mugabe, the last of Africa’s state founders still in power from the era of the struggle against colonialism, and one of the continent’s most polarizing figures.

Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as a liberation hero, is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa’s most promising states.

He plunged Zimbabwe into a fresh political crisis last week by firing his vice president and presumed successor. The generals believed that move was aimed at clearing a path for Grace Mugabe to take over and announced on Monday they were prepared to “step in” if purges of their allies did not end.

“We are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,” Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, said on television.

“As soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.”

In a sign Grace Mugabe’s allies were coming under pressure, the head of the ruling party’s youth wing, Kudzanai Chipanga, appeared on state TV on Wednesday evening to apologize for comments he had made criticizing the army a day earlier. He said he was speaking voluntarily.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the African Union and Western countries called for calm.

South Africa’s defense and state security ministers flew into Harare to try to arrange talks between Mugabe and the generals, South African media reported without going into further details.

“We cannot tell how developments in Zimbabwe will play out in the days ahead and we do not know whether this marks the downfall of Mugabe or not,” British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told parliament. “We will do all we can, with our international partners, to ensure this provides a genuine opportunity for all Zimbabweans to decide their future.”

Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of the ruling party’s ‘G40’ faction, led by Grace Mugabe, had been detained by the military, a government source said.

CAREENING OFF A CLIFF

By Wednesday afternoon it was business as usual in Harare’s suburbs while there was less traffic than normal in the city center. Residents spoke in awe of events that had previously seemed unthinkable.

“I don’t support the army but I am happy to see Mugabe gone, maybe this country can start to develop again,” said Rumbi Katepfu, preparing to shut her mobile phone shop early in downtown Harare. “I did not think this would ever happen… We used to think Mugabe and Grace were invincible.”

As evening fell there were fewer people on the streets than usual. In one park, a lone couple shared a chocolate bar, seemingly unconcerned by the presence of troops. “What’s there to fear? This is a free country,” said Nathan Mpariwa, stroking the hand of his partner.

Tanks blocked roads after dark and soldiers with automatic weapons kept up their patrols, but made no effort to stop people streaming home from work.

Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a once-in-a-generation change for the southern African nation, once a regional bread-basket, reduced to destitution by an economic crisis Mugabe’s opponents have long blamed on him.

Even many of Mugabe’s most loyal supporters had come to oppose the rise of his wife, who courted the powerful youth wing of the ruling party but alienated the military, led by Mugabe’s former guerrilla comrades from the 1970s independence struggle.

“This is a correction of a state that was careening off the cliff,” Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the liberation war veterans, told Reuters. “It’s the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the history of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became old, surrendered his court to a gang of thieves around his wife.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy, adding it hoped the military intervention would lead to the “establishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state”.

Zuma – speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – expressed hope there would be no unconstitutional changes, and urged Zimbabwe’s government and the military “to resolve the political impasse amicably”.

ECONOMIC IMPLOSION

While most African states gained independence by the end of the 1960s, Zimbabwe remained one of the last European colonies on the continent, ruled by white settlers as Rhodesia until 1980. Mugabe took power after a long guerrilla struggle, and two decades later ordered the forcible seizure of white-owned farms.

The collapse in output that followed was one of the worst economic depressions of modern times. By 2007-2008 inflation topped out at 500 billion percent. Mugabe blamed Britain and the United States for sabotaging the country to bring it to heel. His followers used violence to suppress a growing domestic opposition he branded lackeys of former colonial powers.

The economy briefly stabilized from 2010-2014 when Mugabe was forced to accept a power-sharing government with the opposition, but since then the recovery has unraveled. In the last year, a chronic shortage of dollars has led to long queues outside banks. Imported goods are running out and economists say that by some measures inflation is now at 50 percent a month.

The economic implosion has destabilized the region, sending millions of poor laborers to neighboring South Africa.

“It’s an amazing thing that is happening. It was about time but it might be 20 years too late,” said Billy, 30, a Zimbabwean working as a marketing officer in South Africa. Asked if he would return to Zimbabwe if the economy was revived, he said: “Definitely, there is no place like home.”

The political crisis came to a head last week when Mugabe sacked his presumed heir, Vice President Emerson Mnangagwa, a long-serving former leader of the security forces nicknamed “the Crocodile” for his role as Mugabe’s enforcer over the decades.

The head of the military held a news conference with top brass on Monday threatening to “step in” if the purge of veterans continued. Soldiers deployed across Harare on Tuesday and seized the state broadcaster after Mugabe’s ruling party accused the military chief of treason.

According to a trove of intelligence documents reviewed by Reuters this year, Mnangagwa has been planning to revitalize the economy by bringing back white farmers kicked off their land and patching up relations with the World Bank and IMF.

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, James Macharia, Joe Brock and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Michelle Nichols at the United NAtions; Writing by James Macharia, Ed Cropley and Peter Graff; Graphic by Jermey Gaunt; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Andrew Heavens)

Zimbabwe’s army seizes power, targets ‘criminals’ around Mugabe

Zimbabwe's army seizes power, targets 'criminals' around Mugabe

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s military seized power early on Wednesday saying it was targeting “criminals” around President Robert Mugabe, the only ruler the country has known in its 37 years of independence.

Soldiers seized the state broadcaster. Armored vehicles blocked roads to the main government offices, parliament and the courts in central Harare, while taxis ferried commuters to work nearby. The atmosphere in the capital remained calm.

The military said Mugabe and his family were safe. Mugabe himself spoke by telephone to the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and told him he was confined to his home but fine, the South African presidency said in a statement.

It was not clear whether the apparent military coup would bring a formal end to Mugabe’s rule; the main goal of the generals appears to be preventing Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife Grace from succeeding him.

But whether or not he remains in office, it is likely to mark the end of the total dominance of the country by Mugabe, the last of Africa’s generation of state founders still in power.

Mugabe, still seen by many Africans as an anti-colonial hero, is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa’s most promising states.

He plunged Zimbabwe into a fresh political crisis last week by firing his vice president and presumed successor. The generals believed that move was aimed at clearing a path for Grace Mugabe to take over and announced on Monday they were prepared to “step in” if purges of their allies did not end.

“We are only targeting criminals around him (Mugabe) who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice,” Major General SB Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, said on television.

“As soon as we have accomplished our mission, we expect that the situation will return to normalcy.”

CAREENING OFF A CLIFF

Whatever the final outcome, the events could signal a once-in-a-generation change for the southern African nation, once one of the continent’s most prosperous, reduced to poverty by an economic crisis Mugabe’s opponents have long blamed on him.

Even many of Mugabe’s most loyal supporters over the decades had come to oppose the rise of his wife, who courted the powerful youth wing of the ruling party but alienated the military, led by Mugabe’s former guerrilla comrades from the 1970s independence struggle.

“This is a correction of a state that was careening off the cliff,” Chris Mutsvangwa, the leader of the liberation war veterans, told Reuters. “It’s the end of a very painful and sad chapter in the history of a young nation, in which a dictator, as he became old, surrendered his court to a gang of thieves around his wife.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy, adding it hoped the military intervention would lead to the “establishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state”.

Zuma – speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – expressed hope there would be no unconstitutional changes of government in Zimbabwe as that would be contrary to both SADC and African Union positions.

Zuma urged Zimbabwe’s government and the military “to resolve the political impasse amicably”.

Zimbabwe struggles: http://reut.rs/2zZkX8O

ECONOMIC DECLINE

Zimbabwe’s economic decline over the past two decades has been a drag on the southern African region. Millions of economic refugees have streamed out of the country, mostly to neighboring South Africa.

Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo, a leading member of the ruling ZANU-PF party’s ‘G40’ faction, led by Grace Mugabe, had been detained by the military, a government source said.

Soldiers deployed across Harare on Tuesday and seized the state broadcaster after ZANU-PF accused the head of the military of treason, prompting speculation of a coup.

Just 24 hours after military chief General Constantino Chiwenga threatened to intervene to end a purge of his allies in ZANU-PF, a Reuters reporter saw armored personnel carriers on main roads around the capital.

Aggressive soldiers told passing cars to keep moving through the darkness. “Don’t try anything funny. Just go,” one barked at Reuters on Harare Drive.

Two hours later, soldiers overran the headquarters of the ZBC, the state broadcaster, a Mugabe mouthpiece, and ordered staff to leave. Several ZBC workers were manhandled, two members of staff and a human rights activist said.

Shortly afterwards, three explosions rocked the center of the capital, Reuters witnesses said.

The United States and Britain advised their citizens in Harare to stay indoors because of “political uncertainty.”

The southern African nation had been on edge since Monday when Chiwenga, Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, said he was prepared to “step in” to end a purge of supporters of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president sacked last week.

In the last year, a chronic absence of dollars has led to long queues outside banks and an economic and financial collapse that many fear will rival the meltdown of 2007-2008, when inflation topped out at 500 billion percent.

Imported goods are running out and economists say that, by some measures, inflation is now at 50 percent a month.

According to a trove of intelligence documents reviewed by Reuters this year, Mnangagwa has been planning to revitalize the economy by bringing back thousands of white farmers kicked off their land nearly two decades ago and patching up relations with the World Bank and IMF.

Zimbabwe dollar: http://tmsnrt.rs/2ALN6xd

(Additional reporting by Ed Cropley, James Macharia, Joe Brock and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg; Writing by James Macharia and Ed Cropley; Graphic by Jermey Gaunt Editing by Janet Lawrence and Peter Graff)

Child hunger and death rising in Zimbabwe due to drought, charity says

By Katy Migiro

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Child hunger and deaths are rising in Zimbabwe due to the worst drought in two decades, with thousands facing starvation by the end of the year without additional aid, an international charity said on Thursday.

Southern Africa has been hard hit over the past year by drought exacerbated by El Niño, a warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which has wilted crops, slowed economic growth and driven food prices higher.

“This is an emergency,” Save the Children UK’s interim chief executive Tanya Steele said in a statement, after visiting Binga, on Zimbabwe’s western border with Zambia.

“Some children are already dying of complications from malnutrition.”

Mothers are foraging for wild berries and roots to feed their children, while going without food themselves for up to five days, the charity said.

The number of under-fives who have died of hunger-related causes in Binga town has reached 200 over the last 18 months — triple the usual rate, it said.

More than 60 million people, two thirds of them in east and southern Africa, are facing food shortages because of droughts linked to El Nino, according to the United Nations.

The U.N. World Food Programme estimates around 4 million people — one in three Zimbabweans — are struggling to meet their basic food needs.

The peak of the emergency is likely to be between October and March, the U.N. children’s fund (UNICEF) said.

Hundreds of young children across the country are being admitted to hospital for malnutrition each month, it said, while child neglect, abuse and child labor are on the rise.

HIV/AIDS is often one of the underlying causes of malnutrition in Zimbabwe, where 15 percent of adults are living with the disease, U.N. figures show.

The number of children suffering malnutrition is expected to rise sharply in the coming months, Save the Children said.

“Most of the severely malnourished children who receive no help are likely to die,” it said.

“Around half of these with moderate acute malnutrition could also perish without some form of intervention.”

El Nino ended in May but meteorologists predict a La Nina event, which usually brings floods to southern Africa, is likely to develop in the second half of this year,

Erratic, late rains in Zimbabwe led to a poor harvest in April, with some families suffering their second or third consecutive year of poor production, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET).

(Reporting by Katy Migiro; Editing by Katie Nguyen.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories.)

Zimbabweans suffer ‘savage’ police abuse and torture

Zimbabwean Pastor Mawarire addresses followers after his release at Harare Magistrates court

By Ed Cropley

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A 10-year-old girl knocked out by tear gas from a grenade thrown into her home. A disabled boy beaten and left unconscious at a bus-stop. A 17-year-old set upon by six police dogs.

The list of cases recorded by a trauma clinic is detailed and varied – men, women and children whose only fault was being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Zimbabwean police cracked down on a rare outbreak of dissent this month against President Robert Mugabe.

“Torture, Torture, Torture, Intimidation, Torture, Torture, Intimidation, Assaulted, Torture…”, reads one column of the spreadsheet prepared by the clinic, which was seen by Reuters.

The violence occurred during a “stay-away” inspired by Evan Mawarire, a 39-year-old preacher, whose call for workers to stay home in protest against corruption and economic decline amounts to the biggest challenge to Mugabe’s rule in nearly a decade.

Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba and information minister Chris Mushowe did not answer their mobile phones or reply to text messages requesting comment on the allegations of abuse.

The clinic that prepared the spreadsheet redacted the names and ID numbers of victims. Officials from the clinic asked that it not be identified for fear of reprisals, and Reuters was not able to confirm the individual incidents directly.

But Frances Morris, a doctor who treated some of the victims, said the injuries included broken arms and hands, and were indicative of “savage” treatment.

The victims, she said, were mainly civilians who were not involved in protests, even though the injuries were of a severity that the clinic normally confronts only among participants of riots.

“The dog bite injuries reflect the use of uncontrolled dogs,” she said.

In a July 11 Twitter post, former information minister Jonathan Moyo, a leading Mugabe defender, accused the anti-government protest movement inspired by Mawarire of fomenting violence.

“In Germany when you want to kill dogs you cause rabies. In Zimbabwe when you want to grab power unconstitutionally you cause social unrest!” Moyo said.

Mawarire, who says he promotes only peaceful protest, was arrested on Tuesday but released a day later when a magistrate threw out charges of attempting to overthrow the state, an offense that carries up to 20 years in jail.

A warrant seen by Reuters for a police raid on his home accused him of having a stolen police helmet and other “subversive material” used to incite unrest on July 6, the day of the “stay-away” protest.

As Mawarire appeared in court on Wednesday, dozens of riot police backed by armored vehicles and water cannon took up position outside the building.

BATONS, DOG BITES

Television footage and pictures this month from the southern African country have shown baton-wielding riot police taking on groups of young men in restive Harare townships.

In one incident described in the clinic’s spreadsheet, three riot police assaulted a mother of a newborn in her home in Epworth, a Harare township well-known as a hotbed of opposition to Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party.

“When my child started crying my husband opened the door and was manhandled by the police and they took him away,” the 24-year-old woman recounted.

“I tried to ask them why they were taking away my husband. They started beating me with baton sticks all over the body. I told them I had an operation – I had a caesarian section. The police said they were having a much more important operation than mine.”

In another, a 17-year-old boy who had left home to collect his school examination results was set upon by riot police and beaten with truncheons and fists before being held for two nights at Harare’s central police station.

Another 17-year-old was accosted by six riot police with dogs at his home. “They commanded their dogs to bite me and two others,” the boy said.

Photographs provided by the clinic and dated July 14 showed one dog-bite victim lying in a hospital bed with flesh wounds on his left lower leg. The largest wound was 10 cm across.

Beatrice Mtetwa, Zimbabwe’s top human rights lawyer, said she would be raising the issue of police brutality when those arrested in the crackdown next appeared in court on July 28. She did not yet have full details of the incidents, she said.

“We are still in the process of collating that information and deciding which one of the persons who are in court have also been treated by the medical facility,” Mtetwa told Reuters.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Ignatius Chombo said police would be out in full force to prevent any repeat of last week’s Mawarire-inspired “stay away”.

“We have sufficient contingent of police to deal with the issue. There is no need for the army. This is their daily bread and they will deal with any eventuality,” Chombo said.

“PRAY FOR ZIMBABWE”

Zimbabwe has a history of violence against opponents of Mugabe, the only president the country has known since independence from Britain in 1980.

In 2008, after hundreds of his supporters were beaten up, then-opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out of an election run-off against Mugabe to prevent anybody being killed.

A year earlier, Tsvangirai himself was beaten after being arrested on his way to a Harare prayer rally. When he emerged from custody, his face was severely swollen and he had deep gashes in his head.

Edward Chikombo, a freelance cameraman who obtained pictures of Tsvangirai’s injuries, was later abducted from his Harare home. His body was found a week later.

Mindful of such events, father-of-two Mawarire had pre-recorded a video to be released should he disappear. Within minutes of his arrest this week, his supporters put it out.

“You are watching this video because I have either been arrested or I have been abducted,” he said in the grainy clip posted under his #ThisFlag Twitter hashtag.

“Maybe we shall see each other again. Maybe we shall never see each other again. And maybe we succeeded, or maybe we failed. Whatever the case, you and I have stood to build Zimbabwe,” he continued. “Remember to pray for Zimbabwe.”

(Reporting by Ed Cropley; editing by Peter Graff)

Zimbabwe Pastor charged with attempting to overthrow government

Pastor Evan Mawarire, who launched the movement #ThisFlag, is seen at a press conference in Harare

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean pastor Evan Mawarire was charged on Wednesday with attempting to overthrow the government through an Internet campaign that inspired rare protests this month against President Robert Mugabe.

Mawarire appeared in a packed Harare courtroom draped in the Zimbabwean flag after spending the night in police cells as officers searched his house, church and office.

Mawarire’s lawyer Harrison Nkomo said his client faced up to 20 years in jail and accused the state of ambushing the defense by changing charges without informing them.

Hundreds of Mawarire’s supporters gathered outside the court, waving the national flag and singing protest songs, as anti-riot police kept a watchful eye.

“We are here in solidarity with a man of the cloth who is standing against a system that has impoverished the citizens of this nation,” Harare resident Pastor Ellard said.

Though Mawarire had called for further “stay at home” protests on Wednesday, queues built up as normal at bus and taxi ranks to ferry people to work, while most businesses were open.

Teachers reported for duty at most public schools, which are conducting mid-year examinations, while nurses and doctors were at work at state-run hospitals.

Mawarire last month posted a video online, that has since gone viral under the moniker #ThisFlag, venting his anger about deteriorating social and economic conditions in Zimbabwe and urging citizens to hold government to account.

“I am angered by the poverty and day to day struggles. The economy is not working and there are no jobs,” Zimbabwean activist Maureen Kademaunga told Reuters.

The preacher’s social media movement has rattled 92-year-old Mugabe’s administration, leading to accusations by the state against Mawarire of inciting public violence.

Anger is rising in Zimbabwe over high unemployment, corruption in government and shortages of money, which has seen people spending hours in bank queues to withdraw their money.

Zimbabwe’s government warned protesters on Tuesday they would face the “full wrath of the law” if they heeded Mawarire’s call, after his #ThisFlag movement organized the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade last week.

After his arrest, Mawarire supporters released a pre-recorded video urging Zimbabweans to stage another stay-away protest on Wednesday, although the early signs were that most people had not heeded the call.

Amnesty International said Mawarire’s arrest was a calculated plan by Zimbabwean authorities to intimidate activists ahead of Wednesday’s protests.

“Instead of suppressing dissenting voices, Zimbabwean authorities should be listening to protesters like Evan Mawarire,” said Muleya Mwananyanda, Amnesty International’s deputy director for southern Africa.

(Additional reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Joe Brock and Ralph Boulton)

Zimbabwe empties female prisons in struggle to feed inmates

President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace greet supporters of his ZANU (PF) party during the "One Million Man March", a show of support of Mugabe's rule in Harare

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has granted amnesty to all female prisoners except those on death row or serving life sentences, as prisons struggle to feed inmates due to lack of funding from the government.

Five prisoners died in March 2015 after being shot by police in a protest over food shortages, which turned violent as some of them attempted to break out of jail.

Mugabe announced the pardon through a government notice on Monday, without stating a reason for the move, and the release of prisoners started on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services spokeswoman Priscilla Mthembo said on Thursday there were 580 female inmates across the country’s 46 prisons, and those eligible would be set free. At the country’s top security jail in Harare, two female prisoners serving life sentences remained after the amnesty, while vetting was ongoing at other prisons.

In all, Mthembo said more than 2,000 prisoners would benefit from Mugabe’s pardon. These included all juveniles, irrespective of their crimes, as well as some men not serving time for serious crimes like murder, armed robbery, treason, rape or carjacking.

Zimbabwe’s prisons hold 20,000 inmates, more than their capacity of 17,000, causing congestion and shortages of everything from food to uniforms.

Under the constitution of the Southern African nation, Mugabe, who routinely pardons prisoners, is required to consult his cabinet on all amnesties.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Zimbabwe needs buyers to save animals from drought

A herd of elephants walk at a drinking hole in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe

HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe put its wild animals up for sale on Tuesday, saying it needed buyers to step in and save the beasts from a devastating drought.

Members of the public “with the capacity to acquire and manage wildlife” – and enough land to hold the animals – should get in touch to register an interest, the state Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said.

There were no details on the animals on offer or their cost, but the southern African country’s 10 national parks are famed for their huge populations of elephants, lions, rhinos, leopards and buffalos.

A drought across the region has left more than 4 million Zimbabweans needing aid and hit the crops they rely on for food and export earnings, from maize to tobacco.

It has also exacerbated an economic crisis in the cash-strapped country that has largely been deserted by foreign donors since 1999.

Selling the animals would give some of them a new home and ease financial pressure on the parks authority, which says it receives little government funding and struggles to get by on what it earns through hunting and tourism.

“In light of the drought … Parks and Wildlife Management Authority intends to destock its parks estates through selling some of the wildlife,” the authority said in a statement.

It asked interested Zimbabweans to get in touch and did not mention foreign buyers. Parks authority spokeswoman Caroline Washaya-Moyo would not say whether the animals could be exported or how many it wanted to sell.

“We do not have a target. The number of animals depends on the bids we receive,” she said.

There was no immediate comment from the wildlife groups that protested loudly last year when Zimbabwe exported 60 elephants, half of them to China, where the animals are prized for their tusks.

About 54,000 of Zimbabwe’s 80,000 elephants live in the western Hwange National Park, more than four times the number it is supposed to hold, the agency says.

The drought is expected to worsen an already critical water shortage in Hwange, which has no rivers and relies on donors to buy fuel to pump out underground wells.

The privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reported in February that Bubye Conservancy, a private game park in southern Zimbabwe, could be forced to kill 200 lions to reduce over-population.

Many hunters have stayed away, the paper quoted Bubye general manager Blondie Leathem as saying, since the furor over the killing of Cecil, a rare black-maned lion, by a U.S. dentist last year.

(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by James Macharia and Andrew Heavens)

El Niño leaves millions of Africans vulnerable to hunger, thirst, disease

A abnormally strong El Niño weather pattern and extreme droughts have left millions of Africans vulnerable to hunger, water shortages and disease, a United Nations agency warned on Wednesday, including about 1 million severely malnourished children who need treatment.

The U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund, or UNICEF, said those children are located in Eastern and Southern Africa, where the extreme weather has adversely affected food supplies. It said families there have skipped meals or sold some of their possessions to cope with rising prices.

In a statement, Leila Gharagozloo-Pakkala, the agency’s regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa, called the situation “unprecedented” and warned of a long-lasting effect.

“The El Niño weather phenomenon will wane, but the cost to children – many who were already living hand-to-mouth – will be felt for years to come,” Gharagozloo-Pakkala said.

Meteorologists have said this season’s El Niño is one of the strongest on record and its effects are likely to continue well into 2016. However, the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that areas affected by the El Niño-fueled drought will likely need two years to recover.

El Niño occurs when part of the Pacific Ocean is warmer than usual, setting off a ripple effect that brings atypical and often extreme weather throughout the world. It has been blamed for creating droughts in some nations and floods in others, both of which can destroy harvests.

Last week, four agencies issued a joint statement warning the weather pattern could devastate Southern Africa’s upcoming harvests. The World Food Programme, Food and Agricultural Organization, Famine Early Warning Systems Network and European Commission’s Joint Research Centre said parts of Southern Africa are in the midst of their driest season in 35 years, with Zimbabwe, Lesotho and many South African provinces declaring drought emergencies.

Other nations have implemented measures to reduce water consumption because of low levels.

Two of the harder-hit nations are South Africa and Malawi, and the agencies said maize prices surged to record-high levels in those countries. The agencies warned the window of opportunity to plant crops in Southern Africa had nearly closed, and forecasts point to another poor harvest.

“Over the coming year, humanitarian partners should prepare themselves for food insecurity levels and food insecure population numbers in southern Africa to be at their highest levels since the 2002-2003 food crisis,” the agencies warned, saying it was too early for an exact figure.

Any increase would add to the millions of people who currently need food aid.

That includes more than 10 million Ethiopians, a total UNICEF says could reach 18 million by December. The agency says children have skipped school because they have to search for water.

UNICEF says about 2.8 million people are at risk of going hungry in Malawi, while food insecurity poses an issue for 2.8 million Zimbabwe residents and 800,000 people in Angola.

El Niño has also brought heavy rains to Kenya, which UNICEF says is fueling cholera outbreaks.

The World Food Programme also recently said El Niño has hurt Haiti’s agriculture industry.

The weather isn’t the only the thing impacting people’s ability to secure food.

Violent conflicts have spurred food shortages in other nations, and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network says “emergency” conditions now exist in parts of South Sudan and Yemen.