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Zimbabwe: Quantifying Destruction Report
Amnesty International
September 08, 2006

http://www.amnesty.org/resources/pdf/Zimbabwe_Quantifying_Destruction.pdf - (2.08MB)

View some of the images from this report

Introduction
Between May and July 2005 some 700,000 people in Zimbabwe lost their homes, their livelihoods or both as a direct consequence of the government’s Operation Murambatsvina¹, a programme of mass forced evictions and demolitions of homes and informal businesses. In some areas entire settlements were razed to the ground. While the demolitions took place right across the country, the majority of the destruction occurred in high density urban areas in Harare, Chitungwiza, Bulawayo, Mutare, Kariba and Victoria Falls. In these areas tens of thousands of poor families lived in what are known as backyard cottages or extensions - these were small, often brick, structures built on residential plots around the main house, sometimes attached to the main house, and sometimes a little way separate from it. They varied in size from one to several rooms. In urban areas these backyard structures were the only source of accommodation for poor people, who could not afford to buy a plot of land and build their own home. The government and local authorities in Zimbabwe provide almost no cheap rental accommodation.

Operation Murambatsvina occurred countrywide. This report contains "before" and "after" satellite images of four sites affected by Operation Murambatsvina: Porta Farm settlement and portions of both Hatcliffe and Chitungwiza, all located around the capital, Harare, and Killarney, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Bulawayo in the south of Zimbabwe.²

These images, which represent only a fraction of the demolitions, provide compelling visual evidence of the scale of the destruction and human rights violations which took place in Zimbabwe during 2005. Using satellite technology it has also been possible to count the number of structures destroyed at these sites, providing quantitative evidence of the demolitions. In just the four areas covered by the satellite images more than 5,000 structures were destroyed. The government of Zimbabwe maintains that all of the homes demolished were "illegal" structures. However, the homes and settlements destroyed included informal settlements of long standing where the government itself had placed people, homes on sites where people held government leases, and areas where court orders existed prohibiting the evictions.³

Despite the claims of the government of Zimbabwe, forced evictions and demolitions without due process, even of structures deemed to be "illegal", are not permitted under international law. The United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights considers that "the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing",⁴ while the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, to which Zimbabwe is a state party, has stated that "instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law."⁵ The mass evictions of Operation Murambatsvina were carried out without adequate notice, court orders, due process, legal protection, redress or appropriate relocation measures. They resulted in hundreds of thousands of people being made homeless in winter.

About this report
The satellite images in this report were commissioned by Amnesty International and were analysed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with funding from the MacArthur Foundation in the United States.

1. Operation Murambatsvina means ‘drive out rubbish’ in Shona.

2. Amnesty International researchers visited Porta Farm, Chitungwiza and Hatcliffe in August 2005 and witnessed the visible evidence of demolitions and evictions at all these sites. Interviews were conducted with residents of Porta Farm, Chitungwiza, Hatcliffe and Killarney, also in 2005. The residents of Porta Farm and Killarney, both of which were destroyed, were interviewed in various locations to which they had moved in the aftermath of Operation Murambatsvina, including churches and a holding camp set up by the government. Amnesty International researchers subsequently visited Porta Farm, Hatcliffe and Killarney in April and May 2006, and interviewed people who had returned to Killarney and Hatcliffe. Porta Farm was deserted and access was restricted by wildlife officers who claimed they were there to prevent poaching of fish from the nearby lake.

3. Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina bythe UN Special Envoy on Human Settlement Issues in Zimbabwe, 22 July 2005. See also: Amnesty International,"Zimbabwe: shattered lives – the case of Porta Farm", AI Index AFR 46/004/2006, 31 March 2006.

4 UN Commission on Human Rights, Resolution 1993/77, para 1.

5 CESCR General Comment No. 4 on right to adequate housing (1991), para. 18.

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