[hbtvGhana.com] Zimbabwean farmer Robert Smart inspects irrigation pipes for a potato crop after returning to his family farm. Smart last year had been evicted at gunpoint under Robert Mugabe’s programme to force white farmers to hand over their land.
When the riot police arrived, Zimbabwean farmworker Mary Mhuriyengwe saw her life fall apart as her job and home disappeared in the ruthless land seizures that defined Robert Mugabe’s rule.
Mhuriyengwe, 35, watched as police carrying AK-47 rifles released teargas to force white farmer Robert Smart off his land in June 2017 ‐ perhaps the last of 18 years of evictions that helped to trigger the country’s economic collapse.
A widow and mother of two, Mhuriyengwe relied on her work as a general labourer at Smart’s Lesbury Estates farm in Headlands, 160 kilometres (100 miles) east of the capital Harare.
"It’s the only job I had and I had no husband to turn to," she said, her voice breaking with emotion. "I found myself with nothing."
To her shock and amazement, Mhuriyengwe is now back at work on the farm and back living in her modest house, after Mugabe was ousted in November and Emmerson Mnangagwa became president. |