By Rex Mphisa
MYSTERY surrounds the disappearance of 6 or more cross-border porters commonly called “MaZalawi”, believed to have been killed in rival gang violence in the Limpopo River banks recently.
The bodies of Trust Takaedza, male with missing hand, and Fortunate Ramagom, a female from Shule Shule in Dulivhadzimu whose body had been dismembered as well, have been recovered in the Limpopo River and have since been taken for burial.
After retrieval from the river their bodies had been kept at Beitbridge District Hospital where they appear in the books and had been collected for burial.
Ramagom was buried in Mwenezi, her home.
The two are, together with the missing fellow MaZalawi now presumed dead, known by their colleagues to have been hired by two men identified as Arthur and Sanboy to carry what is now believed to be a contraband of dagga.
They are said to have attempted crossing into Zimbabwe further upstream of the Dulivhadzimu Gorge but were met by a gang rival to Sanboy who attacked them with machetes and threw their remains into the river.
The acting commanding officer commanding Beitbridge Police District Superintendent Philisani Ndebele said he did not have any knowledge of such an incident.
“We do not have that report,” Ndebele told Ziyah News Network this week.
But one MuZalawi told Ziyah News Network that indeed between 8 and 11 of her colleagues had been asked to carry a consignment belong to Arthur and Sanboy on the South Africa border taxi rank.
“We suspect the consignment was dagga. There were two groups with others carrying Arthur’s and the other goods belonging to Sanboy. They were to use an illegal crossing point upstream of the Dulivhadzimu Gorge but are said to have got into trouble before crossing the river,” one female Zalawi said.
“We heard they met a gang carrying machete who appear to have had a score to settle with Sanboy and trouble started,” she said.
It is understood the gang started assaulting and using machetes in their dismembering of the MaZalawi and throwing their helpless victims in the Limpopo River which of late has been flooded.
To date the MaZalawi hired by both Arthur and Sanboy and the two are yet to be seen.
Those who revealed the story had strict conditions of anonymity if fear of reprisals.
Rival gangs have divided sections of the Limpopo River to establish their own “border posts” to smuggle different items in the banks of the Limpopo River where crime is rife despite the presence of police and army from both Zimbabwe and SA.
While the two countries have deployed personnel to arrest crime, the gangs outsmart the officials to smuggle cigarettes, alcohol and items as big as motor vehicles driven across the riverbed.
Several deaths have been reported in the banks of the Limpopo who course runs for close to 300 kilometres as the physical boundary between the two neighbouring countries.
Crime has been blamed on the failure by the two countries to provide alternative border posts and astronomic duties in the case of Zimbabwe.