SOUTH Africa based Zimbabwean journalist Mkhululi Chimoio says he continues to live in fear for his life and the safety of his family after he was handed a threatening message in a sealed envelope which also had a live bullet inside.
Chimoio (33) told NewZimbabwe.com from his Johannesburg base that he was, last Friday afternoon, approached by a woman he suspected to be in her late 30s who handed him the frightening parcel.
She told him the parcel was coming from “your homeboy” before she disappeared without giving further explanation.
“You bloody Mkhululi, you think you are clever,” read the computer typed message.
“We have let you (sic) for long enough while you abuse our President Mugabe and party on social networks and (in) newspapers.
“At least we now know where you stay and where your kids attend school and we will teach you a lesson you will never forget. We want to deal with you painful (sic). You will regret being a journalist.”
The stranger, said the scribe, was putting on blue jeans and white top. She also looked dark, of medium height and spoke in English.
Chimoio was left to experience the horror of finding the threatening message and the live bullet after the woman had disappeared.
Chimoio has three minor children who are 11 and below who are all learning in South Africa.
“I cannot tell exactly who could be behind this but I have always been a target of some senior Zanu PF officials who feel threatened by my continued spotlighting on public officials who are failing to account for whatever they do on public,” he said.
The newsman further said he could not rule out this could have been an act by Zimbabwean state agents deployed clandestinely in South Africa to gauge the mood among Zimbabwe’s largest Diaspora community.
It is however not the first time Chimoio has been subjected to almost similar threats.
He was in 2015 subjected to social media threats by some Zimbabweans who had read a story in the state controlled Herald newspaper in which controversial Zanu PF activist Energy Mutodi had claimed Chimoio knew better about the whereabouts of journalist-cum-activist Itai Dzamara who was abducted without trace March 2015 by suspected state agents.
Chimoio was last year linked to Baba Jukwa, a faceless but famous Facebook character posing as a Zanu PF mole disgruntled by the goings on in the ruling party. He still denies this to date.
Despite the denials, he has still been subjected to traumatic ordeals which saw him ducking a gun shot by unknown assailants in 2013. His horror did not end there as a smoke grenade was also placed in his car sometime in 2014.
While lucky to survive the two ordeals, the scribe did not manage to avoid a physical attack by strangers who claimed they were Zanu PF supporters out to punish him for soiling the party’s image.