HUMAN rights activist Patson Dzamara, the younger brother to missing activist Itai, has died. He was 34.Both opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa and Information permanent secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana confirmed Dzamara’s death yesterday.
BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE
“I’m so devastated. Just received bad news from the Dzamaras. The young Dzamara gone too soon. This has been a terrible 2020,” Chamisa tweeted.Mangwana also weighed in, saying: “I learnt of the passing on of Patson Dzamara with sadness and grief. His passing on at such a young age puts us in touch with our mortality and the feebleness of life to which we hold no control. My heartfelt condolences to the Dzamara family, his friends and colleagues.”
The United States embassy in Harare also described the youthful human rights defender, who caused government sleepless nights through protests, as a gifted individual with a heart for serving people.
Dzamara, who was arrested countless times after staging solo protests over the abduction of his elder brother by suspected State security agents in 2015, died while awaiting treatment for colon cancer at a private health facility in Harare.
His brother Itai is yet to be accounted for five years on.Patson once complained of being injected with an unknown substance believed to cause cancer while in remand prison. He succumbed to the disease at a time sympathisers had raised US$14 000 of the US$27 000 required for his medication.Burial arrangements were yet to be announced at the time of going to print last night.
