All sides must refrain from violence in an effort to secure a “stable and successful” Zimbabwe, Boris Johnson said after a military takeover in Harare.
The Foreign Secretary said the situation was “fluid” and the UK’s ambassador to the African country said the military remained on the streets at key strategic locations in the capital.
Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe is “fine” but confined to his home after a night of unrest that included a military takeover of the state broadcaster, South African president Jacob Zuma has said.
Mr Johnson, who will update MPs later, said: “We’re monitoring the situation very closely as you can imagine, and our ambassador has been in touch to say that obviously our UK nationals are worried, they should get in touch with our embassy.
“At the moment it’s very fluid and it’s hard to say exactly how this will turn out. I think the most important point to make is that everybody wants to see a stable and successful Zimbabwe.
“I think we are really appealing for everybody to refrain from violence. That’s the crucial thing.”
PICTURES AND VIDEO: Robert Mugabe ‘fine but confined to home’ after army makes move in Zimbabwe
The UK’s acting ambassador to Zimbabwe Simon Thomas said: “I can confirm that military remain deployed at strategic locations around Harare this morning.
“As an embassy our prime concern is obviously for the safety and security of British nationals and our advice to any British nationals who are here in Harare, either living or working or visiting, is to stay at home, stay in your hotel room, wait until things settle down a little bit.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here