Disabled victims of operation Murambatsvina evicted from temporary homes in Bulawayo

By Tererai Karimakwenda
05 December 2006

Many victims of the government’s Operation Murambatsvina have still not found peace or stability 9 months after they lost their homes to the demolition exercise that left over 700,000 people without shelter or employment. Many have suffered evictions from their temporary homes several times with government officials ordering them to return to their rural homes. No-one has been spared, not even the elderly or the sick. And the latest report is even more shocking.
George Nyathi reports that he spoke to some disabled families who said they were evicted from their temporary homes at the Jairos Jiri Association offices in Bulawayo. The organisation is well-respected in Zimbabwe for its role in assisting the disabled, but the families told Nyathi they were served eviction notices by the Jairos Jiri group itself. They were to move out of the space by January 1, 2006. Nyathi visited the site and was not able to get any response from Jairos Jiri officials.
According to the ZimOnline news site, one of the disabled victims said 25 families had been paying rent to the association and were crammed into five rooms. Nyathi spoke to a family that had come all the way from Harare, and others were from Masvingo and Gweru. They were all disabled people whose homes were destroyed when the government conducted its so-called cleanup exercise in March 2005. Nyathi said it is not known where many of them had gone, but some were still possibly roaming around the Bulawayo area with nowhere to go.
Some of the disabled families said they were on a waiting list to receive housing under the government’s reconstruction programme Operation Garikai. Nyathi told us this list has grown to over 70,000 people who are alleged to be supporters of the ruling party. The houses they are hoping to be given have not been built yet. So while they wait, the disabled victims who have been made homeless again search for yet another place to sleep.