“They beat us 40 whips in the morning, 40 in the afternoon and 40 in the evening.”
“There was a lot of screaming.” The BBC is reporting that Zimbabwean police and military are recruiting civilians to illegally dig for diamonds for them. The report also mentions a torture camp, run by Zimbabwe’s security forces, operating in the country’s rich Marange diamond fields.
According to the report, victims had recently told of severe beatings and sexual assault. The main torture camp uncovered is known locally as “Diamond Base”. According to the BBC, witnesses said it is a “remote collection of military tents, with an outdoor razor wire enclosure where the prisoners are kept.”
This is how it works: The police and military recruits civilians to illegally dig for diamonds for them. Those workers are taken to camps for punishment if they demand too large a share of the profits. Civilians caught mining for themselves are also punished in the camps. A former member of a paramilitary police unit who worked in the main camp in late 2008 told the BBC that at the time he tortured prisoners by mock-drowning them and whipping them on their genitals. He also said that dogs were methodically ordered by a handler to maul prisoners. According to him it was “a place of torture where sometimes miners are unable to walk on account of the beatings.”
We also used dogs. We would handcuff the prisoner, they would unleash the dogs so that he can bite. There was a lot of screaming. One woman was bitten on the breast by the dogs whilst she was working in the camp. She did not survive.
A former captive told the BBC how they were whipped three times a day.
They beat us 40 whips in the morning, 40 in the afternoon and 40 in the evening. I could not use one of my arms after the beatings and could barely walk. They used logs to beat me here, under my feet, as I lay on the ground. They also used stones to beat my ankles.
[Source: News24]
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