Gangs of machete wielding gold panners have turned gold-rich areas in Zimbabwe into warzones. The gangs who move around in motorcades loaded with machetes, axes and other weapons are committing crimes such as vandalism, robbery, murder and rape throughout the country. Towns such as Kwekwe, Kadoma and Norton have almost become uninhabitable with killings and maiming’s happening on a daily basis.
According to a recent Zimbabwe Peace Project October report titled Who will protect citizens from their ‘supposed’ protectors? 105 people have died and 200 others have been injured on the hands of the machete wielding gold panners. This is only since August this year.
In April two soldiers were killed by machete wielding gold panners after a dispute over sex workers, in Bindura, a town in Mashonaland Province which is about 88km from Harare. In most towns where there is gold nearby people can no longer frequent beerhalls in the evening as these as dominated by the gold panners and they can attack beerhall patrons at the smallest provocation. In Kadoma and Kwekwe daylight murders in streets are common. In Mazowe vendors have witnessed people being thrown alive into mine shafts or hacked to death.
The gangs known as Mashurugwi after the gold mining district where most of them originate often target small scale miners and gold panners, whom they rob or they take over their mining operations.
Although calls have been made for their arrests, including the recent one by President Emmerson Mnangagwa they remain largely untouchable. However, Taurai Mutandwa, aka Khedza, leader of one of the gangs known as Team Barca was shot dead by police in a gun exchange on Thursday in Chegutu, 107 kilometres (66 mi), southwest of the capital Harare .
A gold rush had occurred after gold was discovered in the district on 12 November Seven people were allegedly injured in the attacks between machete wielding gold panners.
Eventually police dispersed the gold panners and had to camp on the site. On Monday police and groups of artisanal miners exchanged gunfire.
Up to now, 33 people have been arrested and five vehicles recovered
Despite this recent successful operation by the police against the gold panners, the reputation of the mob of gold panners still remains as terrible as that of Al Capone and his gang during the Prohibition era in America, or of the Mafia in Sicily. Perhaps there will come a day when people in gold rich areas will walk or sleep in peace.
