Mbizo Stadium

Mbizo Stadium is a small stadium in Mbizo township, north-west of the city of Kwekwe in Zimbabwe. It is used for various activities, from hosting music concerts by popular artists like Alick Macheso, Simon Chimbetu to Tongai Moyo, a native of the town. The stadium is located in Mbizo section one, the oldest part of the township. It has a capacity of about a thousand people.

On 21 November 2014, a stampede occurred at stadium and killing 11 and injuring 40 people.Reuters reported that around 30,000 people attended a religious service officiated by Walter Magaya. After the service, the crowd left toward a single exit in a stampede, killing four immediately; seven others were pronounced dead at hospital. The Business Standard reported that the stampede was caused by police firing teargas after some of the crowd attempted to break off parts of the stadium wall to exit.

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Mbizo

Mbizo is a high density suburb in Kwekwe. It is located east of the city center across the railway line from ZIMASCO, the ferro-chrome producer. The suburb is divided into several sections all numbered one up to twenty. Mbizo Section One and Two form the oldest part of the suburb, which were originally built to house cheap labour for the gold mines in up town. Mbizo Stadium is located across from section one. nearby, Manunure High School sprawls in a meadow across the street from section two.

Background

The suburb, as is everything in Zimbabwe's main towns and cities, was formally a black only area, reserved for the poor and African population that streamed to the town in search of jobs. Together with Amaveni, Mbizo supplied the much needed labour to the gold mines scattered across the growing town. Since independence, the population of the suburb has exploded and the suburb itself has expanded from two sections numbered one and two, to eighteen. Most of these sections have extensions called 'one extension' and so forth.