Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Minister Perrance Shiri is the first senior government official who has died of the COVID-19 infection, President Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed the news on Thursday, reported Reuters.
Shiri, who helped plot a coup that ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017, breathed his last on Wednesday. He was declared a national hero and will be buried on Friday during a closed ceremony.
“Now that it is confirmed that Minister Shiri died of COVID-19, we will follow World Health Organisation regulations on how the funeral should proceed,” Mnangagwa said during a funeral wake at Shiri’s home in Harare.
Zimbabwe has recorded 2,879 confirmed coronavirus cases and 40 deaths so far. The country also recorded a significant number of recoveries at 283, raising the total number of recoveries from 604 to 887. A total of 126,708 COVID-19 tests have been conducted to date.
In related news, the security forces forced businesses including banks and supermarkets, were shut to shut down in the capital Harare early on Friday as police and soldiers patrolled the streets to stop anti-government protests called by activists over soaring prices, inadequate public services and allegations of graft at the highest levels of President Mnangagwa’s government.
The police has manned checkpoints and ordered hundreds of people trying to enter the city to return home.
A police statement said no demonstrations would be allowed. It warned that anyone attending the protests will “only have themselves to blame”. The government officials have described the protests, which have been banned under restrictions on social gatherings during the Covid-19 pandemic, being planned by Western governments to overthrow the government.
“It must never be in doubt that the objective of these rogue Zimbabweans acting as in cahoots with foreign appendages, supporters, and financiers … is to overthrow our democratically elected Government,” Mnangagwa said on Wednesday.
He said Friday’s protest would constitute an insurrection by the opposition.
