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VANDALS have smashed and damaged 85 tombstones at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare, with families distraught, and wondering how the graves were selected for random attack.
Videos and pictures have emerged online showing the smashed memorials across the site.
The exact cost of desecrated property is yet to be confirmed, but rough estimates given by most families put it at US$20 000.
Harare City Council spokesperson Mr Stanley Gama said at least 85 graves were vandalised at the municipal cemetery and the city council had already launched an investigation.
“Harare City Council has enlisted the services of the police with a view to apprehending the culprit/s for prosecution,” he said.
“We have heightened security at Warren Hills and ZRP has also pledged to help in terms of security at Warren Hills. We have also deployed armed guards.”
Mr Gama said the city council could not compensate the victims since council only sells graves.
“Harare City council will not compensate anyone; it is up to individual families to do repairs and replacements,” he said.
“City council sells graves to people and there is no contract of compensating them if such incidents arise.”
Relatives were trickling in yesterday to check tombstones of their family members.
Graves were randomly attacked and destroyed leaving people having unanswered questions as to what strategy was used to vandalise them.
One of those with relatives buried in the cemetery and who lives nearby, Mrs Rosemary Chishawa, said members of the community were shocked with the level of destruction of tombstones and graveyards.
“This was a shock to us all to wake up and see nearly 85 tombstones vandalised with the attackers being unknown,” she said.
“Up to now no one really knows what transpired and what caused it but I suspect it is either a mad man or drug addicts as they are capable of such.”
Another resident and florist at Warren Hills, Mr Tazvigarira Karidza, who had flowers and wreathes stolen, said there had never been such an incident at the cemetery.
Some of the graves that were vandalised at Warren Hills Cemetery in Harare this week.
“Everyone is still shocked with this development as nothing of the sort has ever happened before,” he said.
“My flowers were also stolen and a few found later in the woods. I suspect that these same vandals are the ones who destroyed the tombstones and graves.”
A minister of religion, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the vandalism destroyed the peace of both the deceased and their relatives and called for law enforcement agents to intervene.
“This has disturbed the peace of relatives of the deceased. These people are not afraid of vandalising graves,” he said.
“This level of lack of reverence or respect for the dead should not go unpunished both from a legal and spiritual perspective and as a family, we are calling on those who enforce the laws of the land to intervene.”
Miss Chipo Nakwane, who has relatives buried at Warren Hills, said she was troubled by the level of vandalism at the cemetery.
“When I heard of this tragic news I panicked and could not function properly. I had to see for myself what had happened and also check if my mother and my brother’s graves were not vandalised,” she said.
“To God be the glory, my mother’s tombstone was not vandalised but I am yet to confirm my brother’s. The level of vandalism done to the site is troubling my heart.”
National spokesperson for Vapostori and MaZion for ED, Madzibaba Obey Mapuranga, said such acts of vandalism were forbidden in Christianity.
“In our spiritual and cultural norms, it is forbidden to use, transfer or vandalise any material at a grave.
“If a grave is in anyway vandalised, the families must start asking questions as to what made someone do such to their sacred places and after that must seek prophetic counselling. Those who steal or vandalise tombstones will be haunted by the spirits of the dead. We live in a realm which is for the living but the dead live in their own spiritual realm, it’s a reality which we cannot hide from.”
About 30 years ago, there was a spate of thefts of the small bronze plaques used to mark the niches in a wall at Warren Hills where ashes of those cremated were bricked in.
It was assumed that the thieves were after the value of the metal and the little plaques were replaced with stone plaques.
Online Reporter