Catholic Commission providing meals for evicted students

By Lance Guma
12 July 2007

Online news site Talk Zimbabwe.com reports that the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) is helping evicted students at the University of Zimbabwe by providing them at least one meal per day. On Monday the students were given 30 minutes to vacate their halls of residence but with some having to write exams the evictions could not have come at a worse time.

The website quotes Alois Chaumba the head of the CCJP in Harare confirming that students had approached them for help with most now sleeping on the streets. Several churches in the Mt Pleasant area have also been providing shelter to homeless students. ‘We have been providing shelter for a number of them and now our challenge is to provide at least a meal a day for the students, who are currently writing their end of semester examinations,’ Chaumba said.

Meanwhile Newsreel spoke to lawyer Rangu Nyamurundira who is representing students in an application to set aside the evictions in the High Court. He said the matter had been set down for a hearing on Friday. Violent protests rocked the campus over the weekend with students resisting a university directive that they pay an extra Z$1 million in top up fees to cover an extension to the semester caused by a lecturers strike.