Doctors treat 68 gunshot wounds, police stop hundreds: The Standard

Zimbabwean doctors said on Thursday that they had treated nearly 70 people for gunshot wounds as police collected hundreds after the violent protests this week due to soaring drug prices. # 39; gasoline.

The protests, just five months after the mbadacre of six people at post-election protests last August, pose a challenge to President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who promised to repair the troubled economy after replacing President Robert Mugabe after a coup d'etat in November 2017.
Three people died during the demonstrations but human rights groups, lawyers and witnesses said that dozens of people had been beaten by soldiers, highlighting a strong crackdown on dissent by the armed forces. of security.
According to the state television channel ZBC, 600 people, including a prominent activist and an opposition legislator, were arrested during the protests. A group of Zimbabwean lawyers said that he represented up to now more than 130 people arrested for protesting.

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Evan Mawarire, a Harare pastor who distinguished himself as Mugabe's critic and led the closing of the national protest in 2016, will appear in court Thursday to face charges of public violence.
The courts rejected two similar charges against him in 2017, for lack of evidence.
The Zimbabwean Association of Physicians for Human Rights (ZADHR) said that its members had treated 172 people, some with dog bites, in private and public hospitals since Monday, when demonstrations erupted in the country. Harare capital and in the second city, Bulawayo.
"There are cases of patients suffering from chest trauma and fracture of limbs who were forcibly taken from hospital to go to court despite the opinion of the doctors, "ZAHDR said in a statement.
The casualty list included 68 people treated for gunshot wounds, 17 of whom underwent emergency surgery.

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Familiar means
The Zimbabweans had hoped that Mnangagwa would keep his promises before the elections to revive the economy and break with the Mugabe era, but Zimbabwe has fallen back into its habit.
Some companies and banks reopened in the capital, but others remained closed, with calm restored on Thursday, a day after the end of the three-day home strike sparked by the main union.
In one branch of Stanbic Bank, the counters were empty, without customers or workers. One official said workers did not show up for work because they could not find public transportation. There were very few public taxis on the road, leaving many people stranded.
Media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter remained blocked due to a government order, which led to accusations that he wanted to prevent the release of images of heaviness in the whole world.

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"Things are starting to normalize now and going to work is the only option otherwise our families will suffer," said James Vambe, a trader in Harare.
The dollar shortage hits the economy, soaring inflation destroys the value of citizens' savings and the government reacts vigorously to crush dissent.

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Zimbabwe: President Emmerson Mnangagwa