Source: Mangwe chief appeals for support to save livestock – DailyNews

CHIEF Wasi Ndiweni of Mangwe district, Matabeleland South Province, is appealing to the government to intervene as his subjects continue to lose hundreds of cattle which are being shot after straying into Botswana.

Botswana in 2016 introduced a shoot-to-kill policy to eliminate all cattle that stray into her territory. This has, however, seen over a 1 000 cattle being shot, particularly in Bulilima and Mangwe in the past four years.

While the Zimbabwean government has engaged their Botswana counterparts, villagers continue to lose their livestock.

“Our cattle continue to be killed whenever they stray into Botswana and this has thrown many families into poverty. We are very close to the boundary and there is no fence, so it’s not easy to control our cattle from going to the other side. “We are just praying that our government will try to come up with something. We have had quite a number of meetings with authorities from both sides, but it has not yielded anything,” lamented Chief Wasi.

MP for Bulilima West Dingimuzi Phuti admitted that resolving the impasse had become a huge headache. “Our continued attempts to engage the law enforcers, villagers and traditional leadership on this issue has not yielded much.

“We found out that our authorities from the veterinary services and the police at some point engaged their Botswana counterparts… Botswana is protecting its beef market (from cattle diseases)…

It supplies the European Union and beyond,” said Phuti, who is also the deputy minister of Information Communication Technology