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Zimbabwe: Shattered lives - the case of Porta Farm
Amnesty International and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
AI Index: AFR 46/004/2006
March 31, 2006

http://www.amnesty.ca/zimbabwe/porta_farm_report_31march06.pdf

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Summary
For more than a decade the community of Porta Farm struggled to assert their right to housing. In June 2005 that struggle effectively ended when heavily armed police forcibly evicted the people of Porta Farm and destroyed their homes. The evictions were carried out despite the existence of two High Court orders which clearly stated that the people of Porta Farm should not be evicted unless and until the authorities ensured the provision of suitable alternative accommodation.

At the time of its destruction, Porta Farm, was home to between 6,000 and 10,000 people. This community joined the hundreds of thousands of other victims of the government's Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order) - a countrywide programme of mass forced evictions and the demolition of homes and informal businesses. The United Nations (UN) has estimated that in six weeks between May and July 2005, 700,000 people across Zimbabwe lost their homes, their livelihoods, or both as a consequence of Operation Murambatsvina.

Following the destruction of Porta Farm many community members were forcibly relocated, first to Caledonia Farm Transit Camp and then to Hopley Farm, where they were left with no shelter and almost no means of accessing food. Initially the government refused to allow the UN and humanitarian organisations to provide assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) at Hopley Farm. Following UN negotiations with the government, the people at Hopley Farm are now receiving some humanitarian aid. However, the government of Zimbabwe has repeatedly blocked attempts to provide a full programme of emergency shelter for the homeless and overall conditions at Hopley Farm remain poor. The government has indicated that the displaced are to be permanently resettled at Hopley Farm, but it is unclear how or when sufficient housing and infrastructure for basic services such as water and sanitation will be provided for all those forcibly relocated to Hopley Farm. Moreover, the absence of any legal security of tenure leaves people vulnerable to further evictions.

Focusing on the case study of Porta Farm, this report looks at how the government of Zimbabwe has violated a range of human rights through the forcible eviction and forcible displacement of people, and through its subsequent failures to ensure even minimal essential levels of rights to water, food and housing of those who were internally displaced.

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