Impact of Zimbabwe's Operation Murambatsvina Continues Five Years Later - Amnesty Intn'l

Amnesty and its partners said they will submit a petition to Prime Minister Tsvangirai this week urging Harare to provide alternative housing to those still displaced by Murambatsvina, or else compensate them for their economic loss

Five years after thousands of homes in Harare and other Zimbabwean cities and towns were demolished in Operation Murambatsvina, thousands of victims remain homeless and the unity government has done nothing to alleviate their suffering, Amnesty International and a number of local non-governmental organizations said in a report.

Amnesty and its partners said they will submit a petition to Prime Minister Tsvangirai this week urging Harare to provide alternative housing to those still displaced by Murambatsvina, or else compensate them for their economic loss.

The reports said many of those driven from their homes were relocated to rural areas, found shelter in overcrowded urban housing or were pushed by authorities into designated settlement areas.

The Zimbabwean government on May 18, 2005, began demolishing informal settlements across the country leaving more than estimated 700,000 people homeless or without livelihoods or both, the United Nations concluded.

Following worldwide condemnation the government launched a housing program called Operation Garikai, but few if any of those displaced by Operation Murambatsvina received new homes and the project was later abandoned.

Amnesty International Zimbabwe Researcher Simeon Mawanza told VOA Studio 7 reporter Patience Rusere that the Harare government seems to have completely forgotten the victims of Operation Murambatsvina.