HARARE – Zimbabwe’s two major funeral service providers – Nyaradzo and Doves – have since January 1 2020 been ferrying a combined 30 Covid-19 bodies per day to various places of burial in figures that reveal that Government is understating the number of people succumbing to the deadly virus, Zim Morning Post has established.
The Health ministry on Sunday announced that as at 10 January 2021, Zimbabwe had 21 477 confirmed cases, including 12 582 recoveries and 507 deaths – 24 deaths being recorded in the last 24 hours.
As at January 9, the ministry reported 15 deaths for the corresponding 24 hours and 22 deaths countrywide on January 8.
However, investigations by Zim Morning Post which incorporated the schedules of Nyaradzo and Doves show that coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers with a higher death toll of what is being officially reported.
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Corn fields are harvested at Ivordale Farm on August 1, 2018 outside Harare, Zimbabwe [Dan Kitwood/Getty Images]
On August 31, the government of Zimbabwe announced that foreign white farmers settled in the country who lost land between 2000 and 2001 under former President Robert Mugabe’s controversial programme of land reform designed to empower landless Black peasants could apply to get it back.
To enforce this dubious arrangement, the government will revoke offer letters to Black farmers who were resettled on the land formerly belonging to white farmers. And where restitution proves impractical, white farmers will be offered land elsewhere.
A month earlier, the Zimbabwe government had already agreed to pay $3.5bn in compensation to local white farmers “for infrastructure on the farms they lost” when their lands were forcibly taken by the government.