Ten white farmers have been arrested in southern Zimbabwe for defying an order to leave their land and make way for new black settlers, a farming crisis group said on Friday.
”Ten farmers were arrested this morning,” said John Worswick, the vice chairman of Justice for Agriculture (JAG). ”They’re in custody now, and being held over the weekend,” he told AFP.
He said the 10, all sugar cane farmers in the Chiredzi area, planned to challenge government eviction orders that had been served on them in the courts next week.
Police representative could not immediately confirm the arrests. Last month more than 306 farmers were arrested for defying government orders to leave their land.
Worswick also said that three farmers in the Tengwe district of northwestern Zimbabwe were barricaded inside their homes and were under pressure by ”war veterans and settlers” to pay their workers severance packages.
The government has embarked on a massive land redistribution exercise that has so far seen 95% of white-owned land compulsorily acquired for redistribution to landless blacks. – Sapa-AFP