Guerrillas threat to N.Z. nurse

Press, 17 July 1980, Page 9

Guerrillas threat to N.Z. nurse

NZPA-Reuter- Salisbury

Britain’s Save the Children Fund has withdrawn its medical team from an area of central Zimbabwe because of threats against white nurses — one of them an Auckland woman — bv dissident black, guerrillas, the relief’ organisation’s director in Salisbury has said. Mr Euan Lindsay-Smith said the two nurses — Mary Jean Mackie, aged 33, of Ponsonby, Auckland, and a Zimbabwean, Maureen Hetherington, aged 23 — were taken from the area on July 12 after being threatened the day before. Mr Lindsay-Smith said he had been “gravely concerned” for the safety of the nurses. The incident happened in the Nkai area, 240 km south-west of Salisbury, where security sources estimate the number of dissidents at large as about 150. The bush fighters belong to Joshua Nkomo’s Zipra (Zimbabwe Peoples Revo=> lutionary Army) and have

left ceasefire assembly camps to roam the isolated bushlands around Nkai in a rebellion against Robert Mugabe’s Government, the sources say. Mr Lindsay-Smith said the two nurses had been threatened by a group of 13 dissidents, even though they were accompanied, by the police and a . Zipra guerrilla. Mr Nkomo holds the Home Affairs portfolio as Junior Coalition Partner in Mr Mugabe’s Government. Mr Mugabe has accused Zipra guerrillas of refusing to accept his victory in last February’s elections and of fomenting revolt among villagers. The two nurses were in the Nkai area to vaccinate children and had been there for three months, Mr Lindsay-Smith said. .