Zimbabwe was on Saturday due to begin a period of national mourning following the death of Robert Mugabe, the former guerrilla hero turned despot who ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years.

At least 24 people have been killed and dozens are missing in parts of eastern Zimbabwe hit by the peripheral effects of tropical cyclone Idai which lashed neighbouring Mozambique, government said Saturday.

Zimbabwe police manned checkpoints on many main roads on Saturday, searching vehicles for protesters allegedly involved in recent anti-government demonstrations.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe walked away from a group of journalists in South Africa commenting "I don't want to see a white man", television footage showed Friday.

Mugabe was visiting Soweto, heartland of the anti-apartheid struggle, on Thursday on the final day of his state visit to South Africa when he approached a group of reporters.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe visited South Africa on Wednesday in his first state trip to the country since 1994 as he seeks to drum up foreign investment to revive his nation's moribund economy.

Mugabe, 91, who was accompanied by his wife Grace, has visited South Africa regularly in the past but his two-day stay will be his first official state visit in 21 years.

A Zimbabwean woman wrongly accused of killing a young boy has been lynched by an angry mob in a shanty town near the South African capital, Pretoria.

The woman was burnt alive while another man, also from Zimbabwe, managed to escape after police intervened, officials said Tuesday.

Zimbabwe police on Tuesday fired teargas to disperse hundreds of students rallying in support of their unpaid lecturers, witnesses said.

Authorities reacted to the unrest by shutting the university for a week and ordering the campus to be evacuated.

Zimbabwe's main opposition party said Tuesday one of its activists was abducted, blaming long-ruling President Robert Mugabe's government.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Itai Dzamara was seized by unidentified men on Monday.

The European Union on Monday unveiled a $270 million aid package to support Zimbabwe's agriculture and health sectors, marking the resumption of direct funding after more than 10 years.

"We have made an important step in our cooperation with Zimbabwe," EU ambassador Philippe Van Damme said at the signing ceremony for the aid program.

Six children and a woman were killed by a single bolt of lightning as they sheltered in their thatched homestead in rural Zimbabwe, state media reported Wednesday.

"A bolt of lightning suddenly struck the bedroom and kitchen huts" in Bikita district in the southeast of the country on Monday, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba told The Herald.