Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai suffered a second family tragedy within a month when his three-year-old grandson died in a swimming pool accident weeks after his wife was killed in a car crash.
The grandson, Sean, was staying at Tsvangirai’s house in Strathaven, a suburb of the capital, Harare, when he was found drowned in the family pool on Saturday.
“The boy had wandered off and was found later in the pool of the house,” said James Maridadi, Tsvangirai’s spokesman.
Sean was the son of Garikai Tsvangirai. The family, who live in Canada, were in Zimbabwe for the funeral of Garikai’s mother, Susan, who died in a car accident on March 6. Garikai and his wife, Lilian, had been due to return to Canada on Sunday. Sean is to be buried next to his grandmother in her home village of Buhera.
The prime minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), who had only recently returned to work after being injured in the car crash, cut short a government retreat in Victoria Falls to return to the capital.
The meeting was designed to set priorities for the government’s 100-day short-term economic recovery plan. Last week Tsvangirai was part of a delegation that attended a regional Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) summit in Swaziland.
The SADC pledged to assist the new government to raise the US$8.3 billion it says it needs to rebuild its shattered economy after years of hyperinflation.
People in Harare, a bastion of MDC support, said they were saddened by the news of the grandson’s death.
Duncan Tembe, 29, who works at an Internet shop, said: “It’s unbelievable. It’s too tragic, too much for one man to take.”
Nearby in the central business district, a Sunday service at El Shadai church offered prayers for the Tsvangirai family.
The toddler’s death will raise new concerns over Tsvangirai’s preparedness to push through reforms in Zimbabwe so soon after the loss of his wife and barely a month after he was sworn in to lead the country’s unity government.
Besides trying to fix the economy, Tsvangirai is expected to take a key role in fashioning a new constitution, implementing a land audit, attempting to stop land invasions and organizing fresh elections within the next 18 months.
On all of these issues Tsvangirai will have to assert his authority over the president, Robert Mugabe, if he is to win over skeptical Western donors — particularly the US and EU — who want to see a sustained period of reform before giving aid.
According to his spokesman, Tsvangirai’s ministerial colleagues from MDC and Zanu-PF, including Mugabe, sent a note of collective condolence for his loss. It said: “Our deepest condolences. Be strong.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to