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Zim police raze shacks in renewed clean-ups
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
June 15, 2006

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=84&art_id=qw115037856271B253

Harare - Zimbabwean police Thursday razed shacks at a slum on Harare's fringes more than a year after a controversial urban clean-up drive, leaving scores without shelter, an activist said.

"At least 78 families have had their shacks razed to the ground by municipal police early this morning," Precious Shumba, spokesperson for the Combined Harare Residents' Association said.

Shumba said those affected "including many women and children have been told that if they do not find an alternative place to go, then Harare officials will again come back for them tomorrow."

The slum on the banks of the Mukuvisi river in Harare's south housed families rendered homeless during a sweeping urban demolitions blitz last year which left at least 700 000 homeless and destitute, according to the United Nations.

"All in all, 150 people have been affected by burning houses destroyed in June last year when the government embarked on Operation Murambatsvina," or Clean up Filth, he added.

In May last year, the government launched the demolitions campaign that it described as a drive to rid cities of filth and crime. It was launched in winter, amid severe food and fuel shortages.

Zimbabwe is in the throes of severe political and economic crisis, with some 80 percent of the population living under the poverty threshold.

More than 70 percent are jobless and inflation crossed the four-digit level in April and currently stands at nearly 1 200 percent.

Tafadzwa Mapfumo, a lawyer with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum which is representing the affected families said it had petitioned the high court to halt the evictions. - Sapa-AFP

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