Zimbabwe June 2005 |
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| Families sharing homes after demolitions, (Sapa, 2005-06-30):-The demolition of shacks and unauthorized dwellings in a sweeping government blitz has spawned a new housing crisis in Zimbabwe's townships, where families are resorting to sharing scarce space in the few homes left standing. In some instances, a single home is being shared by five families, on average some 25 people, some of whom sleep on floors and share one bathroom between them. The United Nations estimates that 200,000 people have lost their homes since police started the two-pronged "Operation Restore Order" and "Operation Murambatsvina" six weeks ago, flattening backyard shops and stalls across the southern African country. The opposition says the number of homeless is closer to 1.5 million, while tens of thousands have been arrested and charged for various offences. Thirty-six-year-old Agnes Mapfurira is living with her two children, aged seven and three, in a kitchen offered by her friend after police pulled down a backyard shack she was renting in the populous Chitungwiza township, outside Harare. They spend their nights on the floor in the midwinter chill, while belongings are crammed under a veranda. Mapfurira considers herself "one of the lucky few" in Chitungwiza, where tens of thousands of shacks were razed to the ground in the blitz. "I am one of those who are lucky because at least I have a roof above my head," she tells AFP. "There are many families out there in the cold who have nowhere to go after Murambatsvina." Laina Mombeshora, a grandmother, now shares her three-roomed house with two families who lost their homes after police razed a slum on the northern outskirts of Harare. "The house is small, we can't all fit inside so I share the rooms with women and small children while the men sleep outside," said Mombeshora, 54. Mai Chishava, a foster mother, said she moved her adopted children to her rural home after police ordered the family to demolish a backyard extensio used by the kids. Opposition lawmaker Job Sikhala described the situation in his St Mary's constituency in Chitungwiza, where scores of families are sleeping in the open, as "desperate, really desperate." "Two thirds of the people in my constituency lived in those backyard rooms," Sikhala said. "We now have a problem of overcrowding as families share the remaining few houses with friends and relatives. "We also have families who have nowhere to go, who have been sleeping in the open for nearly two weeks now," he says. An overwhelming housing backlog led to the mushrooming of backyard rooms built by property owners to accommodate family members or to rent out to homeseekers. Some property owners are cashing in on the higher demand for residential accomodation caused by the clean-up operation and charging homeless families as much as 700,000 Zimbabwean dollars (about 78 US, 65 euros) per month for a room in the townships and anything around one million Zimbabwean dollars in middle-class surburbs. President Robert Mugabe has defended the blitz which has attracted widespread condemnation from local churches, the opposition, rights groups and the international community. Mugabe told a meeting of his ruling party officials last week that the operation was necessary "to weed out hideouts of crime and grime, filthy stalls." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sent Anna Tibaijuka last week to Zimbabwe to assess the humanitarian impact of the demolitions and the clean-up campaign that police said on Monday was in its "final stages". Tibaijuka held talks with Mugabe on Wednesday and visited areas affected by the campaign. Mugabe said afterwards that the demolitions had been planned well in advance, and the government was setting aside 333 million US dollars to build new homes. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |