White farmers in Zimbabwe have been
brutally attacked in the days after the disputed elections, South African
television reported Monday.
SABC showed images of victims who were treated in hospital in Harare
because of serious injuries.
The attacks concentrated on the southwest region of Mashonaland and increased
in severity in the days since Friday's elections that confirmed President
Robert Mugabe for another term in the southern African country.
Fruit farmer Michael Campbell, 75, told SABC about being beaten, robbed and
threatened with death.
He, his wife Angela and their son-in-law were near the village of Chegutu when
they were fired upon by heavily armed men, kidnapped and beaten. The television
showed the son-in -law, whose face was covered with bandages, wounds and blue
bruises.
The victims said they believed that they were attacked in connection with a
complaint they had before a court of the regional economic grouping, Southern
African Development Community, in Windhoek, Namibia. They were trying to fight
dispossession of their farm by Mugabe's government.
After more than 4,500 white farmers were pushed out through chaotic land
reforms and physical attacks, only an estimated 350 white farmers remain.
The country, once the breadbasket of Africa which exported
food, can no longer feed itself, and Mugabe has blocked foreign food aid from
reaching starving Zimbabweans, dpa reported.
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