Zim evicts 10 000 squatters from capital

HARARE – Zimbabwe police have rounded up some 10 000 squatters, vagrants and street children in the capital, a state daily reported yesterday, in a follow-up to a controversial urban clean-up blitz which left hundreds of thousands homeless last year.

The daily Herald quoted police saying they had rounded up and were interviewing 10 224 people to “establish their living status and origin, especially (if they were) from rural homes.” The latest crackdown comes just under a year after Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina (“Drive out Filth”) in mid-May last year, a clean-up operation which targeted hawkers and demolished illegal structures.A United Nations report afterwards said the operation left 700 000 homeless and destitute – mainly the country’s poorest – when shacks, houses, market stalls and shops were razed, and deprived a million people of income.Police told The Herald yesterday that “we are going to relocate some of the vagrants and street children to their homes.””As police we will not rest until there is sanity in the streets and the operation is continuing,” Assistant Commissioner Munyaradzi Musariri said.The new crackdown was targeting vagrants, street kids, touts “and other disorderly elements roaming and loitering in the streets of Harare,” the daily said.A civic group condemned the blitz, calling it a harassment campaign.- Nampa-AFPThe latest crackdown comes just under a year after Zimbabwe launched Operation Murambatsvina (“Drive out Filth”) in mid-May last year, a clean-up operation which targeted hawkers and demolished illegal structures.A United Nations report afterwards said the operation left 700 000 homeless and destitute – mainly the country’s poorest – when shacks, houses, market stalls and shops were razed, and deprived a million people of income.Police told The Herald yesterday that “we are going to relocate some of the vagrants and street children to their homes.””As police we will not rest until there is sanity in the streets and the operation is continuing,” Assistant Commissioner Munyaradzi Musariri said.The new crackdown was targeting vagrants, street kids, touts “and other disorderly elements roaming and loitering in the streets of Harare,” the daily said.A civic group condemned the blitz, calling it a harassment campaign.- Nampa-AFP