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Alert

ZBC reporter abducted, assaulted, but manages to escape

(MISA/IFEX) - Obrian Rwafa, a news assignment editor with the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), was on 13 December 2008 allegedly abducted and severely assaulted by unknown assailants in Harare.

Rwafa, who was admitted at a private hospital, reportedly sustained head injuries and bruises. He said three unidentified men who were driving a white vehicle approached him after he had just parked his vehicle at his Kuwadzana home. The assailants accused him of lying that things were "okay" in Zimbabwe and forced him into their vehicle. They drove along Bulawayo Road towards Norton, about 40 km west of Harare. He is quoted in the state-controlled national daily, "The Herald", saying he wrestled with the driver and the vehicle veered off the road into a ditch. He managed to escape as the assailants concentrated on rescuing their vehicle from the ditch.

Rwafa then phoned his relatives, who picked him up some distance from where the vehicle veered off the road. A report has been made to the police.

On 3 December, the director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project and a former ZBC television newsreader, Jestina Mukoko, who is still missing, was abducted from her home in Norton by unknown assailants who sped off with her in a Mazda Familia vehicle.

For further information on the Mukoko case: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/99084