Wife of Mugabe rival burned alive after having feet hacked off

The wife of a Zimbabwean opposition party member has been brutally murdered in what is being labelled as one the most grotesque atrocities yet committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Dadirai Chipiro, wife of Patson Chipiro who heads the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district, had a hand cut off as well as both of her feet before a petrol bomb was thrown through her window.

The three men who pulled up outside her house were looking for her husband, who was in Harare, and left before coming back an hour later to kill her.

Her body was so badly burnt that she was not able to be properly placed in a coffin as her arm was burnt rigid.

Last Friday's killing  was carried out as violence worsens in the run-off presidential elections in two weeks time.

It also follows the chilling brutality methods of Sirrra Leone rebel leader Foday Sankoh, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

According to The Times, Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive by Zanu (PF) militiamen.

Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare was killed in a similar attack, which also claimed the life of the councillor six-year-old son.

Zimbabwe has been plunged into civil unrest in the run-up to the second round of Zimbabwe's presidential elections

Meanwhile local MDC supporters gathered around Mr Chipiro’s in a bid to protect him.

Mr Chipiro, 51, arrived back from Harare  to find his three brick huts on fire.

“I was trying to put the fire out,” he said. “I thought my wife was hiding in the bushes.”

The Times said his four-year-old nephew, Admire, heard him calling her. “He ran to me. He said, ‘Auntie has been beaten and they threw her in the fire’.”

Officials also initially refused to give Mr Chipiro a copy of the police report which listed the cause of death.

“I am very frightened,” he said. “They want to kill me. But I have no alternative. My presence here as a leader is very important.

"If I leave, everyone else will leave. I intend to fight the battle, from here.”

Last Friday's killing is being called one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe's regime since independence in 1980