President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government plans to compensate victims of the Gukurahundi genocide which claimed about 20,000 lives in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces in the mid-1980s. Virginia Mabiza, the permanent secretary in the justice ministry, on Wednesday said that the compensation would take various forms.
Among these would be the exhumation and reburial of victims, the provision of counselling and medical services and the issuance of national identity documents to displaced survivors.
It is not immediately clear if there would be any financial compensation for survivors and their families.
"The ministry of home affairs and cultural heritage will facilitate the issuance of birth certificates and death certificates for victims affected by Gukurahundi. It will also facilitate the exhumation and reburial of Gukurahundi victims.
"We're also implementing protection mechanisms for those affected by Gukurahundi to be free to discuss their experiences," Mabiza was quoted in the state-owned Herald newspaper.
The term Gukurahundi is derived from the Shona language and is loosely translated to mean the "early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains".
Under the watch of former president Robert Mugabe, his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade led the brutal crackdown against civilians, mostly Ndebele speaking, in the southern part of the country under the pretext of looking for "dissidents".
Until his fall in November 2017 from a military coup, Mugabe never apologised for the genocide which he described "a moment of madness".
Mnangagwa was state security minister at the time. His rule has come under criticism for the failure to acknowledge the genocide and the various roles played by different people in the execution of Gukurahundi, with some of them currently serving in his government.
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