Zimbabwean authorities Thursday threatened to raze makeshift shantytowns built after an urban demolitions blitz nearly two years ago left hundreds of thousands homeless. "We might go back to Operation Murambatsvina if people continue to squat everywhere," the state-run Herald newspaper quoted Harare metropolitan governor David Karimanzira as saying.
"As a policy we don't want squatters, and all people who are building shacks must destroy them. We want well-planned settlements and the government is not going to sit and watch while people build shacks everywhere," he said.
Zimbabwean authorities launched Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth) in May 2005, calling it an attempt to rid the capital of crime and filth.
But a United Nations report afterwards said the mid-winter drive left 700,000 people — the country's poorest — homeless and destitute when shacks, houses, market stalls and shops were razed.
The operation, known locally as "the tsunami," also deprived at least a million people of their means of livelihood in an economically-ravaged country grappling with four-digit inflation.
Despite a much-vaunted follow-up operation called "Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle," or "Live Well", meant to help those whose homes or shops were destroyed, tens of thousands were still living in makeshift homes at various locations across the country.
A new squatter settlement has sprouted in the populous Mbare township, one of the areas worst affected by the demolitions campaign.
Another slum taking shape adjacent to Harare's posh Gunhill suburb is home to people who either cannot afford high rents or those who lost their homes during Operation Murambatsvina.
Source: Agence France-Presse
