HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - A new report by human rights activists Wednesday paints a grim picture of life in Zimbabwe, more than a year after authorities demolished urban houses, shelters and market stalls in a campaign called "Operation Drive Out Trash."
The Solidarity Peace Trust, a group of Zimbabwean and South African church leaders, said almost nothing has been done to house or help at least 700,000 people who lost homes or livelihoods and 2.4 million more who suffered related losses 15 months ago.
The church leaders called for massive government and international action to ease the humanitarian crisis.
"If nothing is done, then obviously in a year from now, the situation will have changed only for the worse for the hundreds of thousands who have lived in hopeless squalor since their shelters were demolished over a year ago," they said.
The report was released in the South African city of Johannesburg by Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, a frequent critic of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. There was no immediate comment from the Zimbabwean government on the report.
Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, with record inflation of nearly 1,000 percent, the highest in the world. The country also faces acute shortages of food, gasoline and imports, along with an HIV/AIDS epidemic that is killing at least 3,000 people a week.
The government insisted last year's often brutal urban renewal drive, known as "Operation Murambatsvina" in the local Shona language, flushed out criminals and black market traders whose activities were fueling record inflation in the ailing economy.
But the United Nations described the demolition of an estimated 200,000 homes and shelters, accompanied by mass arrests and the seizure and destruction of private possessions, as unjustified, indiscriminate and "not just a crisis but a meltdown."
The report released Wednesday said only about 2,000 new homes were built in the past year for the displaced under the government-led rebuilding program.
Few were fit for habitation or had been connected to standard utilities, and many were corruptly allocated to government officials, ruling party supporters and military and police unaffected by the so-called slum clearance campaign, it said.
In and around the Bulawayo, the country's second-largest city, not a single person in one group of about 100,000 displaced people has yet been officially rehoused, the report said.
"People have been severely impoverished and highly stressed by continual movement," the report said. "All have lost possessions and many have lost their health. A distressing number have died."
The report said the demolitions have led to "shocking overcrowding" and a sharp decline in social and economic conditions. Children have been exposed to sex-for-money activities and school drop out rates soared, the report said.
According to the report, researchers estimated that 86 percent of shelters destroyed in one area last year did not meet the criteria for slums, and the demolitions "destroyed valuable living space," it said. Continue >>
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