Harare – Footage has emerged of Zimbabwean riot police being chased and stoned by angry football fans, as onlookers clap, whistle and cheer.
In a telling 18-second clip, uploaded by the privately-owned Newsday to YouTube on Monday, five police officers and their dogs sprint away from Rufaro Stadium in Harare on Sunday as missiles rain down on them.
Watch the video below.
Fans of Dynamos (also known as DeMbare) appear to have vented their frustrations upon the police after their team lost to rivals FC Platinum.
The police force is still seen as being overwhelmingly loyal to President Robert Mugabe’s government.
The state-owned Herald newspaper reported that police were “overwhelmed by the stone-throwing mob for close to an hour”. The paper said a Harare City Council van transporting cash was “caught in the crossfire” and that tear gas was eventually fired at the rioting fans.
But it is the footage of the police officers fleeing to the sound of cheers and whistles that is particularly telling.
Captured by Newsday photographer Aaron Ufumeli, the clip will bring back memories of an incident in 2014 when members of an Apostolic sect beat up riot police officers in the Harare suburb of Budiriro.
The officers had gone to help church officials enforce a ban on the sect. But sect members were having none of it.
Memories are still fresh of the way that Zimbabwe police were used during the political and economic crisis years of 2000-2008 to put down demonstrations by government opponents.
In another clip of Sunday’s post-match chaos, posted to popular Facebook page DeMbare DotComs, fans are seen cheering as the police flee. “Fans celebrated like the team had been crowned champions,” reads the caption.
It added: “The policemen were outnumbered, outmanouvred and #outstoned.”
Anger is rising in Zimbabwe after the authorities announced the imminent introduction of Zimbabwe’s own version of US dollars to ease cash shortages and state media carried yet more revelations of corruption.
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