Zimbabwe police rescue 251 children and find graves at religious compound
Zimbabwe police on Wednesday said they have arrested a man claiming to be a prophet of an apostolic sect at a shrine where believers stay in a compound and authorities found 16 unregistered graves, including those of infants, and more than 250 children used as cheap labour.
In a statement, police spokesman Paul Nyathi said Ishmael Chokurongerwa, 56, a “selfstyled” prophet, led a sect with more than 1,000 members at a farm about 34 kilometres north-west of the capital, Harare, where the children were staying alongside other believers.
The children “were being used to perform various physical activities for the benefit of the sect’s leadership,” he said. Of the 251 children, 246 had no birth certificates.
“Police established that all children of school-going age did not attend formal education and were subjected to abuse as cheap labour, doing manual work in the name of being taught life skills,” said Nyathi.
Police said among the graves they found were those of seven infants whose burials were not registered with authorities.
He said police officers raided the shrine on Tuesday. Chokurongerwa, who called himself the Prophet Ishmael, was arrested together with seven of his aides “for criminal activities which include abuse of minors.”
Nyathi said more details will be released “in due course as investigations unfold.”
A state-run tabloid, H-Metro, which accompanied police during the raid, showed police in riot gear arguing with female believers in white garments and head cloths who demanded the return of children who were put into a waiting police bus. It is not clear where police took the children, and some women who accompanied them.
“Why are they taking our children? We are comfortable here. We don’t have a problem here,” shouted one of the women in a video posted on the newspaper’s X social media account.
According to the newspaper, police officers armed with guns, tear smoke and trained dogs “staged a spectacular raid” on the shrine. Believers described the compound as “their promised land.”