Police in Masvingo detained a 42-year-old woman and her two-year-old baby on Monday after she tried to stop a group of men from fencing off land her family says it has occupied for more than two decades, in a case that has intensified a bitter plot dispute in the Clipsham area.
Nancy Rikitai Gwaindepi and a neighbour were held overnight and released the following afternoon, according to family members. The arrest has drawn fresh attention to a broader land conflict in one of Masvingo’s most sought-after peri-urban farming belts, where hundreds of plot holders say they are being pushed off land they have worked for years.
Fencing, arrest and a family’s fear
Gwaindepi said the confrontation began when a group arrived at her plot and started putting up a fence covering four adjacent plots of about 1.5 hectares each. She said she pleaded with the workers, explaining that her family would be left with nowhere to live.
A police vehicle later arrived with two female officers and a driver, and Gwaindepi, her baby and a neighbour were taken into custody. Her husband, Prichard Tafirenyika Masocks, said the family was left shaken by the arrest and by the uncertainty that followed.
Chivi North MP Godfrey Mukungunugwa confirmed the dispute but said the plot belongs to his brother, Day Mukungunugwa. He described Gwaindepi as an illegal occupant who was given notice to move out after the Ministry allocated the land to his brother in September 2025. He said the area is now designated for agro-business plots and that his brother had been communicating with what he called illegal settlers.
Mukungunugwa asked that the matter not be published, saying it would drag his name through the mud, and said he had never visited the plot himself. Provincial police spokesperson Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa said Gwaindepi’s name was not in police records, but Mukungunugwa confirmed that she had been arrested.
Hundreds of plot holders face eviction
The family says it has lived in Clipsham since 2002. They are among more than 700 people said to be facing eviction, a group that includes war veterans, former police officers and civil servants who have been in the area for over 20 years.
Affected plot holders say they hold offer letters issued by the then Minister of Lands. They claim the new occupiers, said to include permanent secretaries, ministry directors and workers from the office of Masvingo Minister of State Ezra Chadzamira, are armed with fresh letters from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works.
Those being evicted say they were given only verbal notices to vacate, and they allege the new scheme has been shrouded in secrecy. Requests for clarity from relevant government departments have not produced answers over the past two years, residents say.
Some plot holders, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that ZANU PF politicians linked to the takeovers are multiple farm owners with sugarcane operations in Chiredzi and other farms elsewhere. Those claims have not been independently verified.
Trauma, disappeared children and a lost livelihood
Gwaindepi, her husband and their 11-year-old son wept as they described the strain they have endured. She said she is so traumatised and depressed that she sometimes thinks of taking her own life.
She said two of her other children, aged 16 and 19, have disappeared from home as harassment by police and Mukungunugwa’s workers intensified. The family does not know their whereabouts, although they should be in school.
Masocks, who works as a driver in Shurugwi, said he had to leave his job to stay with his family. He added that police had visited the area twice before, telling plot holders that someone with great influence was coming to occupy their plots.
Another affected resident, 72-year-old Moffat Chikozho, said he has lived on his plot since 2002 and has been left disturbed by the latest developments.
The case has renewed questions about land administration, eviction notices and the protection of long-standing occupiers in Masvingo’s contested peri-urban areas. For Gwaindepi’s family, the immediate concern is whether they will still have a home when the fencing dispute returns to the centre of police and political attention.
