Zimbabwe starts compensating white farmers 25 years after land seizures

Step is requirement for restructuring country's debt, including new IMF programme

Zimbabwe has started to make compensation payments to white former farm owners, 25 years after Robert Mugabe's government began confiscating land.

The government paid $3.1m (2.3m) to a first batch" of 378 farms, the ministry of finance said in a statement on Wednesday, the first payout under a 2020 agreement to pay $3.5bn in compensation.