Four Zimbabwean police officers manning a food queue were injured on Sunday in clashes with a group of youths who besieged a shopping centre in Chitungwiza town, 23 kilometres south of the capital, police said on Monday.
Police representative Wayne Bvudzijena said an estimated 200 people were queuing up for mealie-meal, the national staple corn powder, which had been delivered at one of the shops in the capital’s satellite town, when an unknown number of youths attacked the police who were controlling the crowd.
”In the process of controlling the crowd, some youths came and disrupted the queue resulting in four police officers being injured,” said Bvudzijena.
Three of the injured were treated at a local hospital and discharged on Sunday but one of the officers is still in hospital, with his condition reported as stable on Monday.
Four people were arrested and are to appear in court facing charges of public violence. Bvudzijena said police had to fire teargas to disperse the crowd, and ordered the shops to close for the day.
The Chitungwiza clashes came two days after food riots broke out at a state-run grain depot in the second largest city of Bulawayo over claims of unfair distribution of maize.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of crippling food shortages threatening more than two-thirds of the population of 11,6-million.
The shortages are mainly attributed to a drought which has ravaged the region, but critics also blame President Robert Mugabe’s controversial land reforms for worsening the food crisis. – Sapa-AFP