Two opposition officials kidnapped and beaten

Two officials from Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were found severely beaten but alive on Sunday, after self-styled war veterans had abducted them, AFP reported on Monday, quoting party officials. Both MDC parliamentarian Abedinico Bhebhe and local council candidate Joel Sithole suffered severe beatings and were hospitalised for treatment. Bhebhe told AFP he received six stitches to his head and was released from a hospital in the second city of Bulawayo. Sithole was hospitalised in the town of Brunapeg, MDC officials said. Bhebhe said 10 veterans wielding an axe and iron bars abducted him from a petrol station on Saturday afternoon in the southwestern town of Nkayi. He said the war vets told him: “We want to kill you and the MDC, and we have been mandated by the president to kill, and today we want to kill and bury you.” Bhebhe was in Nkayi to meet with his constituents. In a separate incident, Sithole was kidnapped on Friday from the town of Plumtree, near the border with Botswana in southwestern Zimbabwe, one day ahead of a local poll, MDC spokesman Learnmore Jongwe said. He was found severely beaten late on Saturday and was hospitalised for treatment at a small town clinic.