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White farmers in Zimbabwe brutally attacked

Other News Materials 1 July 2008 02:18 (UTC +04:00)

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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