Farmers and vegetable vendors in the Zimbabwean capital Harare are locked in a bitter turf war after the authorities closed down the city’s main outdoor market to stop the spread of cholera, local reports said on Monday.
Thousands of small-scale farmers were left stranded earlier this month after they arrived at the popular Mbare Msika market to sell their fresh produce, only to find the city authorities had closed it down citing fears of cholera.
Cholera has already killed 14 Zimbabweans, three of them from Harare.
When some of the farmers tried to sell their produce at a smaller market in the eastern township of Mabvuku, they were chased away by street vendors who accused them of charging lower prices and pinching their customers, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported.
”We don’t want to see these people here because they are stealing our customers,” one unnamed female vendor told the Herald.
Vendors are struggling to eke out a living following a controversial clean-up campaign in the middle of last year.
Thousands of vendors were arrested and hundreds of flea market stalls demolished. The traders are now supposed to operate only from designated areas.
But the farmers — many of whom live in outlying rural areas — also appear desperate to maintain their trade in Zimbabwe’s highly inflationary environment.
”There is no need for farmers and vendors from this suburb to fight for customers. We are also in business and we should be allowed to sell,” farmer Nicholas Mazambani told the paper.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights group meanwhile lays the blame for Harare’s public health crisis squarely with the authorities, who they said had failed to organise proper waste disposal. – Sapa-DPA