- Title: RHODESIA: FOURTH MASS KILLING SINCE JUNE IN RHODESIA.
- Date: 17th July 1978
- Summary: 1. GV: village huts at Makanza Kraal. 0.06 2. SV AND CU: dead bodies including young children. (7 shots) 0.22 3. SV: burnt bodies (3 shots) 0.37 4. SV: villagers looking at dead bodies. 0.45 5. GV AND SV: Rhodesian soldiers and newsmen and villagers standing near bodies. (3 shots) 0.56 6. SV: Rhodesian Foreign Minister Pieter Van d
- Embargoed: 1st August 1978 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: MAKANZA KRAAL, RHODESIA
- Country: Zimbabwe
- Reuters ID: LVA75IU82AMDKSZ43CQ9NMUC4RZM
- Story Text: Guerrillas attacked a Rhodesia ??? July) and killed 17 Africans including women and children. It is fourth mass killing since June in Rhodesia where Nationalist Guerrillas have waged a six year war for full black supremacy. The lone woman survivor told reports on Saturday (15 July) that she believed the United African National Council was responsible. She said they used a group of Guerrillas loyal to Patriotic Front Co-leader Joshua Nkomo to carry out the killings.
The UANC has denied the allegations.
SYNOPSIS: The attack took place at the tribal village of Makanza Kraal 130 kilometres (80 miles) west of Salisbury.
All but five of the villagers were shot or burned to death. The dead included five men, four women, and eight children aged from four to thirteen. Official sources said the attack started at 4.30 in the afternoon when to guerrillas burst unto the Kraal, at the Zimbabwe African reserve and raked a hut with gunfire killing a family eating supper. Other villagers fled to a hut used as a kitchen but were locked in by the raiders who then set it on fire. There were five survivors. One woman lost her husband and four children.
The is the fourth massacre in the last two months but the first in which there were suggestions of fighting involving factions of the coalition government.
Rhodesian Foreign Minister Pieter Van der Byl visited the scene of the massacre on Saturday (15 July). He blamed black Nationalists opposed to the internal settlement for the massacre. The surviving woman's claim that the killings were a result of a political feud, that developed when the Kraal left the UANC four weeks ago and joined the rival Zimbabwe National Union were discounted by the Foreign Minister who said she was in a "state of shock and a simple peasant woman". he was supported by an army officer who said he didn't believe that supporters of Joshua Nkomo were responsible for the massacre.
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