From an article in the NY Times, an extract:
One woman at a church in Harare held her 11-month-old baby, who had casts on his tiny legs. She said that after her husband, an opposition organizer, went into hiding she had gotten word that ZANU-PF supporters were looking for her, too. She fled with the boy.
She returned home the next day, though, and that is when “the youth,” as foot soldiers of the ruling party are often called, came looking for her, she said. They snatched her son from the bed and hurled him onto the concrete floor, shattering his legs, she said.
Afterward, she was too terrified to move. But that night, when all was quiet, she set out for the opposition headquarters, Harvest House, to seek help there. She was able to carry only her distraught child, and the 12-mile walk took most of the night.
Harvest House was bursting with refugees, but she was able to get care at a hospital. Now her son’s legs stick out at an odd angle below his blue romper suit, encased in plaster casts.
The woman’s blanket was stolen, and because she has been surviving on one meal a day, her thin skirt and jacket hang on her. Her thin legs look as if they, too, might snap.
But when she looks at her baby, her strained face softens and becomes beautiful again. For three days the boy has had only water, she said, because her breast milk has dried up.
“I hate Zimbabwe,” she said. “I want to leave.”