Sydney-based Zimbabweans are appealing to Anglican Churches to help with relief supplies as post-election violence continues in their homeland.
Yesterday masked men attacked a camp housing about 350 people at the South African embassy in Harare. The assault left at least eight people in hospital and more than a dozen missing.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which along with the Anglican Church has been a key target of the state-sponsored campaign, also announced the discovery of the disfigured corpse of another party worker.
At least 20 MDC supporters have been murdered in the past week.
This brings the MDC death toll to 109 since March.
Sydneyanglicans.net has been supplied with extensive video evidence, including interviews with victims, which documents widespread and systematic torture, intimidation and murder by ZANU-PF militias.
In one case, the women from a village that voted strongly for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were stripped naked, tied up and beaten until their buttocks turned red raw. The beatings were so severe that some experienced renal failure.
Lazarus Ndhela, an Australian-based member of the opposition party, the MDC also gave SC graphic examples of torture being inflicted on his fellow party members and their families. He claimed that in one case, the wife of a party official had her hands and feet chopped off before being burnt alive in her home.
Anglicans banned and beaten
The Mugabe regime's persecution of Anglican parishioners in Zimbabwe also escalated sharply in the run-up to the recent election.
The church's historic links to England appear to be driving persecution by a regime fixated on eradicating its colonial past, including the Christian faith.
Parishioners of St Monica's, Chitungwiza, were hospitalised after brutal police assaults. Women were bashed while kneeling in prayer at the Communion rail.
The Bishop of Harare, Sebastian Bakare, told the UK's Daily Telegraph that riot police had attacked "nearly all" of Harare's 58 Anglican churches. "People are too scared to try to worship in their churches in case they are beaten," he said.
There are unconfirmed reports that some parishioners have had their homes burnt to the ground.
"We have more and more people coming to the church in need of help as a result of political violence and intimidation," said a Langham Partnership-sponsored pastor in Harare.
"Abductions happen regularly, murders occur and are unreported. The list could go on and on."
All churches have been stopped from distributing food; even an organisation that feeds street children was told to stop operations.
David Shekede, a Zimbabwean trainee pastor studying at the Presbyterian Theological Center (PTC) in Burwood, believes that Anglicans in Sydney have a responsibility to support their brothers and sisters, especially through prayer.
"It is the people in our congregation who are being persecuted," says Mr Shekede who currently attends Christ Church at Penrith Anglican College and St Mark's, Yagoona. "The church voice needs to be heard much louder to encourage the worshippers, to strengthen their faith, to remind them that God won't let them down."
Mr Shekede, who is also helping to organise the Australian Zimbabwean Association's relief appeal, suggests that another way Sydney Christians can help is to raise money for tents, for those who have lost their homes and also for church meetings.
"There are people with absolutely nothing," he says.
Their first project is to ship a container of clothes and blankets to a partner aid organisation in Zimbabwe who can distribute the items.
