'Being Light-skinned Does Not Exempt You From Lockdown', Police Brutality Leaves 2 Sisters In Hospital

The two Bulawayo women who were battered and bruised by police officers in Cowdray Park suburb after being arrested for allegedly violating lockdown restrictions were held overnight in police cells even though they were seriously injured from the brutal assault and urgently needed medical attention.

One of the two siblings told the Chronicle that the police refused to let their relatives pay fines for them so that they could ferry them to the hospital because their buttocks and hips were swollen. She said:

They told us they would teach us a lesson. They said they wanted to show us that they had better women than us at their homes.

They said our being yellow boned (light-skinned) did not exempt us from the stay at home order.

… We asked them why they were beating us and they said we were rude.

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The pain was excruciating yet they refused to let us seek medical attention. We were eventually fined $200 each the following day in the afternoon.

That is when relatives took us to Mpilo (Central Hospital) for treatment.

Senior police officers have since condemned the Gestapo-style treatment of the women by the three officers.

The women were arrested on April 16 at a supermarket in the suburb where they had gone to buy food for their children.

Under the lockdown imposed by the Government to contain the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus, people are allowed to go outside to buy food.

More: Chronicle