Zimbabwe: Youth advocacy officer narrowly escapes death
Zimbabwean activist Tichaona Masiyambiri narrowly escaped death with the help of local police, after a gang of armed youths attacked him following his address to villagers as part of a civic education programme at Nhakiwa Shopping centre in Uzumba.
In a typical politically dramatic horror a Youth Alliance for Democracy (YAD) advocacy officer, Tichaona Masiyambiri almost kissed goodbye to life. This followed a Constitutional Making Process civic education programme, currently being carried out by Crisis Coalition in conjunction with YAD and other youth organisation who just like the former are youth committee members of the mentioned coalition.
All hell broke lose when Tichaona had just finished addressing villagers at Nhakiwa Shopping centre. The Zanu PF ward chairman only identified as ‘Gudo’ abruptly appeared with a gang of youths armed with knobkerries, catapults, spears, bows and arrows and ordered all the people to return Crisis Coalition advocacy T-shirts to the distributor before dealing with him. As they were advancing towards Tichaona, he realized that only a retreat was strategic, hence he resorted to it with a lightning take off. This prompted the crowd to disperse haphazardly resulting in serious pandemonium at the shopping centre.
Chaos and anarchy, which prevailed, played a major role in saving Tichaona’s life since some youths targeted participants of the meeting. He was only assured of his life when he bumped into a nearby police post. The moment he got into that post, he became unconscious; having been missed by stones and arrows by inches. It took thirty minutes for the officer in charge to calm the assailants who were demanding Tichaona’s head. The accusation was that priority should be on sanctions since they are hurting people in Uzumba.The thugs shouted that their area could only be targeted by Zanu PF and no one else.
Meanwhile under the same programme YAD held a successful public meeting at Mahuwe shopping centre on Friday last week where about 200 people braved a stormy weather and a lion, which had been seen at the scene the previous night. Basically, this platform was utilized to educate youths on the importance of a constitution, issues, which need to be addressed, and an update concerning the constitutional making process. Under the same banner, YAD will be in Magunje on Thursday. Stay glued to this space for more information.
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