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Tsvangirai announces return date
Zimbabwe's opposition leader will head home this weekend despite fears for his life.
Last Modified: 22 May 2008 18:46 GMT
Tsvangirai is set to return to his home country after more than a month away [AFP]
Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, has said he will return to his country on Saturday, after more than a month abroad.

He made the announcement on Thursday during a visit to a South African township at the centre of xenophobic violence that has killed at least 42 people.
Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said: "I'm going home tomorrow to try and solve this problem. I mean Saturday."

The problem he was referring to includes the contesting of a run-off presidential vote on June 27 against Robert Mugabe, the president.
Tsvangirai won the first round of voting at the end of March but not by an absolute majority.

He has spent most of the time since then outside the country, prompting some politicians in Zimababwe to raised questions about his decision to stay outside the country for such a protracted time.
 
"You can't wish to be president of Zimbabwe by remote control," Jonathan Moyo, a former information minister, said in an interview published in The Herald, a state-run Zimbabwean newspaper, on Thursday.

Regional crisis
 
Tsvangiriai had planned to return to Zimbabwe last Saturday but delayed the trip after his supporters alleged that there was a plot to kill him.

The economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe has led to an exodus from the country.

More than three million Zimbabweans are said to be living in neighbouring South Africa.

Resentment that foreigners are competing for scarce jobs and houses has led to a wave of anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa in the past 10 days. Zimbabweans bore the brunt of the violence.

Tsvangirai told a crowd of Zimbabweans outside the police station in the Alexandra township, where the violence started, that Zimbabwe's crisis had spilled over into South Africa.
Source:
Agencies
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