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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Operation Murambatsvina - Countrywide evictions of urban poor - Index of articles
National
Service Youths assault kid at Porta Farm
Zimbabwe
Peace Project
June 29,
2005
In a new wave
of displacements that gripped Porta farm today, three suspected
youths from the National Youth Service training programme allegedly
attacked AC, a twelve year old boy in Section D for ‘obstructing’
the demolitions of buildings during the controversial Operation
Murambatsvina.
The youths,
reports say, were part of a group of police details and council
officials tasked to ‘discipline’ anyone who defied the government’s
orders to vacate the farm.
According to
eyewitnesses, the said victim was in the process of salvaging chickens
into a cage when one of the bulldozers came to demolish his home.
The three youths, all clad in blue overalls, after seeing the victim’s
precarious position reportedly rescued him before thoroughly assaulting
him. One of the alleged assailants reportedly shouted during the
attack, "Kana maiwana protection yaTsvangirai nhasi
hakuna! (If you enjoyed Tsvangirai’s protection before, today
it is different)"
The demolitions
at the farm are in defiance of several High Court orders barring
the state from evicting residents of Porta farm. Ironically, these
demolitions today occurred less than five kilometres from the government’s
demonstation houses along the Harare-Bulawayo road where the United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan’s special envoy on human settlement
Anna Kajumalo Tibaijuka was reportedly touring.
It is alleged
that farm occupants have been barred by the police from carrying
with them, asbestos sheets and movable wooden cabins donated to
them by the World Vision, raising fears of looting of the said building
materials.
Meanwhile, scores
of displaced people at the farm have been reportedly ‘dumped’ along
the Beatrice-Chivhu highway stretch, while others have been promised
to be resettled either at Caledonia Transit Camp or Sally Mugabe
Heights near Domboshawa.
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