adminTemba Dube Deputy News Editor
A Mberengwa man was allegedly hacked to death with an axe and his body thrown into a burning hut together with his screaming wife.
The couple was buried on Sunday following the gruesome attack, which occurred on Wednesday at around 11PM at Zungamana Village.
The attack happened when the couple’s children, aged eight and 10, were in another hut.
The minors have since told police that they heard their mother screaming for help as she burned to death.
Relatives said unknown attackers chopped off Isaac Nkomo’s leg and broke one of his hands in a brutal attack after stuffing pieces of cloth into his mouth.
They then tied him to a bed and dragged his wife, Lina Shumba (44), into the same hut that they went on to set on fire.
The relatives told Chronicle that the attackers doused the hut with petrol and set it on fire.
“We really fear for our lives because this is not the first time Nkomo has been axed. Two years ago some unidentified people broke into his bedroom hut at night and viciously attacked him with an axe, leaving him for dead. He spent some time in hospital after the attack. We think the same people could have returned and finished him off,” said a relative.
Neighbours said Nkomo’s uncle Ronald Muchechete who lives at a nearby homestead woke up after hearing his nephew’s children screaming.
They said he rushed to Nkomo’s homestead and found the hut on fire.
The roof had already caved in.
“Barbed wire had been used to secure the door. He knocked the door down while calling for help from other neighbours. When we got to the scene we saw that Nkomo and his wife were dead. We made a report at Mataga Police Base,” said Tamirirashe Mahembe, a neighbour.
He told Chronicle villagers were living in fear as the killers were still on the loose.
Other villagers narrated how police officers who attended the scene the following morning wept at the sheer brutality of the murder.
“The police officers shed tears as they recovered the bodies. They found Nkomo’s chopped off leg beside him and one of his hands was broken. Even as I speak, I can still smell the nauseating scent of charred human flesh. This is by far the most horrific killing ever witnessed in this part of the country,” said the villager.
National Police Spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi could not be reached for a comment yesterday.
Online Reporter