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Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau

“It feels like I am watching a movie or dreaming and I can’t explain what is going on around me. We have been shaken by this assailant that has decimated the family. We are confused and yet to come to terms with these events.”

These were the words of journalist Kudzi Musengi on learning of the death of his father-in-law on Wednesday this week, only a few hours after Musengi had lost his wife and fellow journalist, Vimbai Nhutsve-Musengi, to Covid-19 related complications.

Vimbai was a former Herald intern. Musengi’s mother-in-law had been the first to die the day before the tragic Wednesday.

All the three family members died in Gweru where the local community has been left dumbfounded.

 Losing a wife and in-laws in a space of 24 hours is a very harrowing experience.

Unfortunately for Musengi, this is no reverie from which he will wake up. 

“Imagine being at a funeral parlour making burial arrangements for your wife and her mother and you receive news that your father-in-law has also passed away?

 “It is something that one cannot easily understand, but this is the reality that we face as the family.” 

Vimbai, who was 41, lost her mother to Covid-19 on Tuesday and early the next day, she also succumbing to the disease.

Tributes and condolence messages were still pouring in for Musengi after Vimbai’s demise in the morning of Wednesday when he learnt of the death later that day of Mr Nobert Nhutsve, his father-in-law.

Mr Nhutsve, a prominent historian and former National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe director for Midlands, had also succumbed to Covid-19.

Musengi said the situation was simply unbearable.

 Acting National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe director for Midlands, Mr Clepperton Gutu, mourned the death of Mr Nhutsve describing him as a fountain of knowledge on Zimbabwean archaeological history.

 “I would constantly go to him and tap from his vast knowledge of the archaeology and heritage of Zimbabwe,” he said. “He will be dearly missed. I worked very closely with him and every time he would talk dearly about his wife and daughter Vimbai. 

“He was very close to the two and as fate would have it, they all died in quick succession.” 

Mr Gutu described Mr Nhutsve as an educationist par excellence having been a teacher from the late 1970s when he taught in refugee camps during the liberation struggle.