Tearfund’s partners in Zimbabwe are overcoming election intimidation to deliver much-needed food supplies to vulnerable people.
With just over a month until Zimbabweans return to the polls for a run-off vote to elect a president, violence and attacks are still a daily occurrence especially in rural areas.
Delivering food supplies in the current climate is not easy with some agencies being targeted because the Mugabe regime considers them an unwelcome outside influence.
But Tearfund’s church-linked partners are using their resourcefulness to continue to provide food to the hungry.
One pastor, who has been helping feed local children, said, `It is very dangerous for my family and the families of the orphans but there is a desperate need for food so I deliver it at night.’
Nightmares
Others church leaders have suffered at the hands of supporters of Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
A pastor in Mashonaland had to flee to Harare after his home was burnt down. He told a Tearfund partner that the situation in his district was `terribly bad’.
`People have turned into animals. Thanks be to God we are alive,’ he said.
His son is recovering after being beaten up and his wife is still having nightmares following four hours in police detention.
Militias, especially the infamous `war veterans’, have been bringing terror to many rural communities suspected of voting for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Burning homes
One Matabeleland family, who we cannot name for their own security, awoke one night to hear a gang outside their home chanting abuse and threatening to kill them.
Bravely the father of the family went outside with a stick, pretending it was a gun. The militia fled but not before torching two of the family’s huts.
* This Sunday is Africa Day, marking the creation of the African Union.
It is being designated `Stand Up for Zimbabwe Day’ and church congregations are being urged to pray for the people of Zimbabwe in this election period, particularly those who have been beaten, tortured and made homeless.