Zimbabwe opposition supporters describe violence

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Opposition supporters from Zimbabwe's countryside described on Tuesday a campaign of arson and violence against them since President Robert Mugabe's ruling party lost a parliamentary election a month ago.

"My house was burned down, so were all the clothes and my children spent a week sleeping in the bush," said Chengetanai Chimunhu, a 70-year-old activist and father of four from Marambapfungwe, a rural district east of Harare.

Precious, a tearful 22-year-old with a six-month-old baby who was too afraid to give her second name, told a similar story.

"They torched our house, they burnt our livestock, I have nothing left and don't know where to start...," she told reporters.

Human rights groups, Western governments and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change all say that Mugabe has unleashed his militias in the countryside since the March 29 vote both to punish and intimidate before an expected presidential run-off.

Electoral authorities confirmed last weekend that the MDC defeated Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in the parliamentary poll but results of the presidential vote have still not been released.

Thousands of people have fled their homes and the MDC says more than 15 of its supporters have been killed by ZANU-PF militants. The ruling party denies this.

Precious, like many other opposition supporters, fled her smoldering home in northeastern Zimbabwe and took refugee in the MDC offices in the capital Harare.