Harrison Kachingwe swears he will never ride in a Honda Fit again. Last December he was stripped and thrown from the moving car after being picked up by a driver in the middle of the night. “There were four men in the car including the driver, I assumed the others were passengers but after a few minutes I was strangled, beaten and robbed of the little money I had and some my phone”says the victim.
Spacious and economical, the city car has become the favorite of criminals in Zimbabwe, reports the South African weekly Mail & Guardian. According to a police spokesman in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, 75% of thefts there are committed using this type of vehicle. During a check, the police stopped a Honda Fit carrying no less than 16 stolen goats. Vehicles also implicated in numerous rape cases.
Alternative to public transport
At the origin of the phenomenon, the ban on taxibuses due to the pandemic which threw a swarm of illegal taxis on Zimbabwean roads. In this context, the Honda Fit, which can carry “up to six or seven people, with a passenger who agrees to pay to be seated in the trunk”, has become the unofficial alternative to public transport, explains the Mail & Guardian. The vehicle has appealed to many income-seeking Zimbabweans, to the point that “the ubiquity of these cars has become a symbol of chaos, turning the city streets into a haven for pirates”.
Problem: The criminals quickly seized the opportunity to blend in with the mass of informal drivers and make the Honda Fit the vehicle of choice. “more abused”. “In a country where millions are out of work, pirate taxi pick-up points have become a haven for touts, who make a living, while residents say touts are in cahoots with drivers to identify potential victims”details the Mail & Guardian. However, the frenzy around the vehicle does not end, and faced with import difficulties, prices have soared: second-hand models sold for 1,000 dollars in certain countries can be resold for more than 5,000 dollars on the market. local.