Harare, Zimbabwe — President Mugabe was accused yesterday of taking “war” to Harare after his militias attacked the poorest townships of Zimbabwe’s capital.

The new onslaught marked a major escalation of his campaign to guarantee victory in the presidential election’s final round on June 27. Remote rural areas had borne the brunt of the violence and suffered most of the 53 murders confirmed so far. Harare, a stronghold for the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, had been relatively quiet.

On Sunday, hundreds of men from the ruling Zanu-PF party raided Harare’s township of Epworth. Lidia Mulenga, 26, fled after her house was burned down. “They were shouting about Zanu-PF and wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts. I think they were youth militia,” she said.

“They used petrol on the house and then set it alight. I ran with the kids. Other houses were attacked. I don’t know how many as I was running away.”

Mrs. Mulenga, a single mother whose husband died in 2003, lives in a derelict part of Epworth, bordering an old farming district that has been devastated by Mr. Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned land. The treeless area, where nothing grows, has been taken over by Zanu-PF’s militias, who claim to be veterans of the war against white rule.

Mrs. Mulenga and her children, Kisha, 7, and Tariro, 5, are now sheltering along with hundreds of others in the Harare headquarters of the MDC. An opposition MP, Willias Madzimure, was trying to help another influx of displaced people.

“There are so many houses burned or destroyed. They come and loot first, then they burn or destroy the property they don’t want. These people are very, very poor. The war is now in Harare,” he said. The MDC put the number of murders at 66, with another 200 people missing and 3,000 seriously injured. A Western diplomat in Harare estimated that 50,000 had been forced to flee their homes.