The ManicaPost
Ray Bande Senior Weekender Reporter
A ROAD test for a newly acquired lorry ended in tragedy last Friday after the vehicle crushed two minors to death in a nasty accident that terrified Zimta Park residents in Mutare.
When they met their fate, the deceased — Batsirayi (10) and Fadzai (2) Mudhafi – had gone to relieve themselves a few metres from a church service they were attending that was being held at an open space in the same suburb.
They were laid to rest at Dangamvura Cemetery on Sunday. The owner of the lorry, only identified as Mutambanashe or Chadebinga, stays a stone’s throw away from the siblings’ home.
Efforts to get a comment from him (Mutambanashe) were fruitless as he was said to have gone to the Vehicle Inspection Department offices over the accident.
When The Weekender approached him at the VID offices he chickened out, denying being the person in question and instantly drove off.
Batsirayi and Fadzai’s coffins before burial last Sunday
Family members of the deceased minors and neighbours were yet to come to terms with the horrible incident. The father of deceased siblings, Vimbai Mudhafi, laboured to narrate how the unfortunate accident occurred.
“I had gone with my family for a prayer session at our usual meeting place as a church on Friday evening. When we arrived at the place, I left them at church and went to a nearby house where I wanted to repair some electrical gadgets.
“On my way back I saw church officials speaking in hushed tones. It was clear to me that there was something that they did not want me to hear. I suddenly discovered that there had been an accident nearby and two children had been killed. I instantly asked whether they were my kids and the answer was in the affirmative. I was so devastated,” said a visibly distraught Mudhafi.
A senior member of the church, Evangelist Brian Sapoti, who was present when the incident happened, said they had to follow-up the lorry as the driver drove off without noticing what had happened.
“We saw the lorry coming. They drove it around the area where we were having our prayer session. There was a vehicle parked nearby and the kids had gone behind that vehicle to relieve themselves. The lorry crushed the kids with its rear tyres when it was driving past the parked vehicle.
“The lorry just drove off and we had to make a follow-up and inform the driver that he had killed two children. That is when they drove back. It was a scary sight,” he said.
Manicaland provincial police spokesperson, Inspector Tavhiringwa Kakohwa, said they were still to receive a report on the accident.
“We have not yet received anything on that. Things are being worked out, I will get back to you when I get the detail,” he said.
