Starving children eat rats, families turn on each other and farmers kill their own livestock to survive. Smuggled film brings Mugabe nightmare to world's attention
A Guardian film smuggled out of Zimbabwe brings home the economic devastation and deprivation Robert Mugabe has wreaked upon his own people.
Sam Chakaipa, at considerable risk to himself and as an act of resistance, returned clandestinely to his village, 125 miles from Harare, to document the plight of his former neighbours.
The opposition activist has produced extraordinary footage of what Zimbabweans have to do in order to survive in a wrecked economy. As money is worthless – Zimbabwe is plagued by the world's highest inflation rate – the villagers are reduced to panning for gold in rivers. Instead of attending school, youngsters from the village scrabble knee-deep in muddy water or dig ever deeper holes in a desperate search for a few grains of gold.
These small supplies of the precious metal have thus become a crucial commodity Zimbabweans can trade for food; a loaf of bread is worth 0.1 grams. But only the young have the strength to dig and pan for gold; the village elders must go hungry, unless they have friends or relatives they can rely on. Some parents have been forced to feed rats to their children, and hunger has turned family members against each other.
In a particularly wrenching scene in the video, a 15-year-old girl with a swollen face describes tearfully how her grandmother beat her to drive her away as she was an extra mouth to feed. She says she has not eaten for three days.
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