Former Secretary-General of the opposition MDC, Senator Douglas Mwonzora, has said that machete gangs have to be properly contained to avoid more serious issues such as a civil war.
He posted on Twitter and said:
The sad phenomenon of the ” Mashurugwi” is fast turning Zimbabwe’s mineral resource endowment into a resource curse. It has all the ingredients of a nascent, brutal& crude civil war. It is an emergency which should never be trivialised by cheap politicking.
His remarks come as the machete gangs known as Mashurugwi or Al Shabab have been terrorising miners and members of the public, mostly in gold mining towns.
Recently, Norton legislator, Temba Mliswa denied claims that the violent machete gangs are from Shurugwi, a district in the Midlands Province.
His remarks were echoed by Home Affairs Minister, Kazembe Kazembe who urged members of the media to desist from labelling machete gangs as Mashurugwi saying that the tag has tribal connotations and can create tribal tensions.
Meanwhile, ZBC News reported on January 4, 2020, that information on the arrested culprits suggests that they come from different parts of the country and none of them comes from Shurugwi.
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