Gukurahundi Mass Grave Found

By ANA L GALVEZ | Published: OCTOBER 25, 2011

According to this article in the Daily News, published in Harare, a mass grave of nearly 60 bodies was discovered in a high school’s football grounds at Lupane, Zimbabwe, last week. The remains are thought to belong to victims of the 1980s Gukurahundi killings, in which an estimated 20,000 people, many of them civilians, died. The atrocities are said to have been committed by the so-called Fifth Brigade, a unit of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU, in Western Matabeleland province. At the time, ZANU was engaged in a war against Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. According to the Guardian, David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s education minister, said: “It is important that professional archaeologists and anthropologists are engaged in the process of the recovery and reburial of the remains.” The discovery presents yet another opportunity for Zimbabwe to deal with its violent past.

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