Zimbabwe police have arrested six white commercial farmers in the northern tobacco growing district of Karoi, about 260km north of Harare.
Police said the farmers had defied government orders to leave their farms with immediate effect.
”Most of these farmers own more than one farm and they have been asked to surrender the other farms and remain with only one,” said a police statement.
Meanwhile, the country’s Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU), which represents most white farmers, said it did not know if its members had been arrested.
”All I know is that one of them, Jan Kageler, was barricaded into his home twice last week by war veterans,” said CFU regional director Ben Kaschula.
”He has an expired order to leave his farm, but now has permission to farm 250ha and surrender the rest,” Kaschula added.
The CFU said attacks against the few remaining white farmers in the district had been coordinated by one self-styled war veteran, despite orders from senior government officials to allow the farmers to continue farming.
Efforts to contact the arrested farmers and their families were fruitless. — Sapa