Women breaks leg in fish and bread auction stampede

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By Torby Chimhashu

A WOMAN broke a leg Tuesday night as hundreds of desperate shoppers thronged Machipisa Police Station in Harare for an auction of bread and fish under candle light.

Dozens of people who had been waiting for the delivery of scarce basic commodities at the three major retail shops at a shopping center near the police post besieged the police station once they had heard auction of food items was in full swing.

It was at the same police station that the two leaders of the splintered MDC -- Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara -- beaten and detained on March 11 when heavily armed police broke down a rally in Highfield.

On Tuesday night, Machipisa police were auctioning fish and bread forcefully seized from vendors in the township as part of its crackdown on businesses which have refused to lower their prices as per a government directive.

A long queue started forming just before 6PM but chaos ensued when one police officer was seen emerging from one of the charge offices with a 2 litre bottle of cooking oil. Anxious shoppers mistook the oil as one of the items on sale.

Passers-by who had ignored the auction, swarmed the police station causing those who had been queuing to push further into the station.

While police tried to control the crowd, one woman fell and was stamped by
dozens of fortune hunters.

The pitch darkness worsened the situation forcing the police to call off the auction.

Machipisa Shopping Centre and a few houses in Engineering Section and "Five Pounds" area had no electricity supply, which shoppers said was cut late Monday.

By early morning Wednesday, the electricity supply had not been restored.

A police officer at Machipisa said it was normal to have an auction as they used the proceeds to supplement their budget.

"It's normal. Things that we seize during lawful police operations such as fuel, beer and foodstuffs, we auction them and use the money to support our operations," he said.

President Robert Mugabe has launched a price blitz on businesses that he accuses of seeking to topple him through raising prices.

So far police have arrested more than 7000 people in its crackdown which has spawned food shortages in a country already reeling from a serious food deficit.

Food agencies have reported that 1,2 million people are faced with starvation in the drought prone areas of Masvingo and Matabeleland provinces.

The cash-strapped government is fighting its worst crisis as the economy continues to implode.

Zimbabwe is in its ninth straight year of economic recession punctuated by galloping inflation which is predicted by the International Monetary Fund to hit 100 000 by year-end.

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