The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) says it has made a cumulative total of 410 497 people have been arrested for breaching national lockdown restrictions since the beginning of the pandemic early last year.
Zimbabwe imposed a total lockdown on the 30th of March last year as part of measures to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic before gradually relaxing the rules mid-year.
But a spike in positive cases and deaths beginning of this year prompted a second hard lockdown due to end on the 15th of this month amid widespread lockdown rules violations.
“410 497 people have been arrested since 30/03/20 for infringing national lockdown measures, mostly for movement restrictions and failure to wear face masks,” ZRP wrote on its Twitter page this afternoon.
As of this Monday, 3 282 people were arrested for various COVID-19 violations, with 935 of the figure being nabbed for failing to wear masks.
The figure rose to 3 671 yesterday with 1077 of those arrested for failing to wear masks.
In a recent interview with 263Chat, ZRP spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner, Paul Nyathi said outside the rampant disregard of wearing masks-which is the major offence, other common violations constitute gathering of imbibers in bottle stores, opening of businesses by non-essential service providers and unnecessary movement during curfew hours.
“Police will continue to enforce these lockdown measures and all those caught on the wrong side will only have themselves to blame. The safety, security and health of all Zimbabweans is everyone’s responsibility,” said the police.
ZRP recently raised concern over the increase in lockdown violations across the country and also warned motorists against bribing police officers to gain passage at checkpoints.
This comes amid growing criticism of some members of the force whose propensity for soliciting bribes has come under spotlight.
