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Farmer attacked, left for dead in Zim

Cape Town – A white Zimbabwean farmer and his wife are reportedly fighting for their lives after they sustained broken bones during an attack which was thought to be politically motivated.

News Day reported on Thursday that David Passapoorts and his wife Anne were allegedly attacked and left for dead at their farm in Darwendale .

The attack, according to sources, came shortly after top Zanu-PF officials in Mashonaland West province threatened to evict the remaining white farmers in the province.

The incident comes just a month after President Robert Mugabe vowed that whites will never be allowed to own land in Zimbabwe, saying the few remaining white farmers must go.

Land ownership imbalances

Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party launched the land reforms in 2000, taking over white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks.

At the time, Mugabe said the reforms were meant to correct colonial land ownership imbalances.

At least 4 000 white commercial farmers were evicted from their farms.

The land seizures were often violent, claiming the lives of several white farmers during clashes with veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation struggle.

Critics of the reforms have blamed the programme for low production on the farms as the majority of the beneficiaries lacked the means and skills to work the land.

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