Zimbabwean MDC activists 'abducted and sexually assaulted'

Three badly injured and traumatised women found on roadside 60 miles from Harare

Jason Burke and Nyasha Chingono in Harare
Sun 17 May 2020 15.52 BST
Last modified on Sun 17 May 2020 17.50 BST

Zimbabwean opposition activists and a member of parliament have described torture, humiliation and repeated sexual assaults after being abducted by suspected state security services.

The three women, all leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change’s youth movement, were arrested at a roadblock guarded by police and soldiers on Wednesday at a protest in Harare against the state’s failure to provide for the poor during the country’s Covid-19 lockdown.

They then disappeared until they were found on a roadside on Friday morning 60 miles away from the capital by a local man, badly injured and traumatised.

Witnesses said masked assailants bundled the three women into an unmarked Toyota minivan and drove them away.

One of the women, Cecilia Chimbiri, 33, told the Guardian they were taken to a remote, wooded area where they were beaten, stripped naked, sexually assaulted with firearms, and forced to drink each other’s urine.

-snip-