Robert Mugabe Takes Son to New York For UN Summit

From left, Bellarmine Mugabe and Robert Mugabe Jnr (file photo).

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is now in New York for this week's 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

He is accompanied by cabinet ministers, senior government officials, wife Grace and youngest son Chatunga who could be was seen smiling on arrival at JFK International Airport in New York on Sunday.

Mugabe's children take advantage of his UN-related trips to travel to the West after the veteran Zimbabwean leader was hit with sanction over allegations of human rights abuses and electoral fraud.

Although he is banned from travelling to the West, Mugabe can still attend meetings of the UN in these countries.

His wife Grace has previously complained that Chatunga's basketball-playing brother, Robert Junio,r saw his dreams of playing in the US come to grief because of the sanctions.

"We had to sit him down and explain that he cannot join a club playing in the US college league because of the sanctions. It hurt him because there was a lot of interest in him, but now he understands what it means to be the son of President Mugabe," Grace claimed back in 2012.

Mugabe travelled to the United States from Venezuela where he was one of a handful of leaders who attended a summit of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Speaking after the adoption Monday of the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants, Mugabe blamed western adventurism for the current refugee crisis.

"We have noted that a large portion of refugees that have landed on European shores originated from countries in armed conflict such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria," he said.

"More often than not, member states have been too keen to resort to force without exhausting peaceful means.

"This hegemonic military doctrine and adventurism, fueled by a desire to achieve the narrow national interests of a powerful few, is the root of the proliferation of armed conflicts which have spawned so many refugees today."