Gold panners ‘disrepect’ the dead

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MBERENGWA traditional leaders are fuming at how illegal gold panners are desecrating graves by turning the district’s largest cemetery near Anesu Gold C-Mine into wretchedness during a gold rush that left some human remains exposed.

MBERENGWA traditional leaders are fuming at how illegal gold panners are desecrating graves by turning the district’s largest cemetery near Anesu Gold C-Mine into wretchedness during a gold rush that left some human remains exposed.

ALLIEWAY NYONI Own Correspondent

A visit at Anesu Gold graveyard, about 7km from Mberengwa district offices, revealed the extent of the desecration, as the place had been literally turned upside down by fortune hunters from across the country.

Chief Bvute said the tale of the cemetery’s destruction dates back to last year when Bobby Chigaga dreamt of 3kgs of gold hidden under a stone in one of the graves in the cemetery.

“A young man called Bobby Chigaga from Zvishavane is said to have dreamt 3kg of gold buried under a stone in one of the graves and when he awoke, he went straight to that point and got the gold,” he narrated.

“The news filtered all over Mberengwa, Zvishavane and other parts of the country and in no time, the whole cemetery had been raided by gold panners.

“They never sought permission from either village elders or C-Mine and they had no respect for the dead as they destroyed all graves.”

Chief Bvute said there was need for appeasement of the dead to avoid evoking angry spirits.

“There should be an initiation ceremony to be conducted and appease the dead buried at that cemetery,” he said. “If not the situation may bring misfortune to our people here in Mberengwa.”

Anesu Gold chief operations officer Ben Chikwakwata said mine authorities, together with help from police, tried to stop the cemetery invasion, but their efforts were fruitless.

“The police would try by all means to arrest them, but they continued arriving in numbers, leaving the whole cemetery and other households in shambles,” he said.

Following the raid, Chikwakwata said the company was mulling sending its staff to a different location, as where they resided they risked a fresh invasion from the gold panners.

A village headman, James Moyo, whose three children were buried in the cemetery, said the government should chip in, erect a fence around the cemetery and set a plaque with the names of those whose graves can no longer be identified.

“I cannot even locate where my children were buried hence it is my plea to the government to at least fence the whole cemetery and build a concrete banner with names of those buried, at least that way I could be at peace,” he said.

The discovery of gold deposits in Mberengwa during the economic meltdown of last decade resulted in a number of people losing their farming fields, houses and shops to the illegal gold panners that invaded any piece of land where they could find the precious metal. Many parts of the district were left deforested.