Police Raids Force Homeless Displacement From Zimbabwe Churches
Police raided churches at night in Zimbabwe's second largest city, forcing hundreds of people taking shelter to leave following a government urban renewal project that demolished the homes of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
Police raided churches at night in Zimbabwe's second largest city, forcing hundreds of people taking shelter to leave following a government urban renewal project that demolished the homes of hundreds of thousands of citizens.
Police in full riot gear entered nine churches on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, arresting between 50 and 100 people at each site, said Rev. Kevin Thompspon of Bulawayo's Presbyterian Church. The people were moved to a transit camp called Helensvale in Umguza about 20 miles west of the city.
Church leaders have been banned from the camp, according to Pastor Albert Chitendo, who said he was conducting a service at Helensvale when police ordered him to leave. He says they have been barred from the camp, according to the Associated Press.
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Rev. Thompson described the scene of one of the raids: "It was pretty brutal and horrific ... They had elderly folk, and they were piling them onto vehicles; they were frog-marching children ... who had been asleep, and Bulawayo is very cold at the moment," he said, according to the Associated Press.
The raids are an apparent extension of efforts which the government says are meant to reduce crime and overcrowding in urban areas by demolishing shantytowns in urban areas. Opposition leaders say the government is trying to scatter the strongholds of their support, forcing people to move to rural areas where support for the government is greater.
Since early May, police have forcibly removed at least 300,000 people from their homes, markets and other buildings considered illegally built.
The police action came two days after the South African Council of Churches had visited Zimbabwe to see the situation of the homeless. Upon their return to South Africa, they reported appalling living conditions for those displaced.
The people in Wednesday night's and Thursday's morning raids were taken to a transit camp unfit for human habitation, said Useni Sibanda, a coordinator for churches ministering to hundreds of homeless in the city. He was referring to Helensvale.
"As we speak the police are moving to more churches in the city and other suburbs. Most of these people were not willing to go to the camp and we were organising for them to go to their rural homes," he said according to SA News.
He added, "The camp does not have sufficient water facilities and there are no tents to shelter the people. We are concerned because babies and sick people will be exposed."
Church leaders of various denominations had sheltered about 300 homeless from their churches at Helensvale, according to Zimonline. However the Zimbabwe government has now required they seek permission from Bulawayo governor Cain Mathema to before visiting the camp.
Pastor Albert Chatindo of the Christian Faith Fellowship Church represented one of about 20 churches from Bulawayo that were helping the homeless at the camp. He said that government officials told him that they had been instructed to bar the churches from the holding camp."
"They (government officials) said I should get off the farm immediately. I had to beg to go back to get my jacket and Bible,
