Zimbabwe: Government evicts more than 300 displaced families in defiance of High Court order

By Violet Gonda

15 November 2005

While the attention of the world is focused on the divisions within the MDC, the Mugabe regime is quietly continuing its programme of driving poor people out of their homes. On Monday armed police defied a High Court order by evicting more than 300 people who were living in an open field in Mbare after their homes were demolished by the government’s so-called clean up exercise, Operation Murambatsvina.

Otto Saki of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said the people who were already sleeping rough in the Mbare grounds were rounded up by armed municipal police and hurled onto 8 truckloads believed to belong to the Harare Municipality.

He said this is despite a High Court order stipulating that the people should not be removed until the government had provided suitable human habitable structures.

It is believed that the victims were dumped at Hopely Farm, the congested informal settlement just outside Harare. More than 5 000 people are already living in squalid conditions at this camp. Many there are living in plastic shacks and with no proper water. The lack of clean water is exposing people to infections and food is also scarce. To make matters worse, aid organisations have been having problems accessing the camp to help people who are believed to be ill.

The ZLHR has also not been able to access the transit camp to help their clients. Saki said the human rights group received a call from a resident on Tuesday who said the area is infested with armed soldiers and police who are making plans to move some of the families to another remote farm, which will make access even more difficult for the lawyers to get in touch with their clients.

The way many displaced families are living has resulted in the outbreak of dysentery in Harare and Chitungwiza. 14 children died of salmonella infections in Harare in the last few weeks.

Instead of the government trying to make conditions more suitable for the homeless it is continuing to evict them despite a hard-hitting report by the UN Habitat chief, Anna Tibaijuka who described the clean-up exercise as a disastrous venture.

Otto Saki said people are not seeing the UN efforts on the ground. Although the ZHLR has been trying to inform the international body of the situation in Zimbabwe, the results of the UN response are not evident.

He said, “… for example, this issue of humanitarian organisations being restricted in providing relief to the needy, the UN is better placed to question some of these acts on a humanitarian base… there is so much that they (UN) can do…”