- Desperate people picked through the wreckage of their
homes yesterday after Zimbabwe's police raided Harare's townships, destroying
"illegal shelters" and leaving 10,000 homeless.
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- Riot police conducting "Operation Drive Out the
Rubbish" were accused of bringing misery to the urban poor, the latest
target of President Robert Mugabe's campaign of terror.
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- In one township Irish missionaries were forced to dismantle
a clinic and a creche for children orphaned by the Aids epidemic. Police
demolished shacks inhabited by impoverished orphans.
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- "How can the little ones of this world be brutalised
in this way?" asked Sister Patricia Walsh, of the Dominican Order.
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- "They are poor, they are helpless and they happen
to live in the wrong part of town."
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- The latest operation centred on the shanty town of Hatcliffe
Extension in the north of the capital.
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- The regime says police are enforcing the law by demolishing
"illegal", temporary homes of wood, cardboard and twisted metal.
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- The authorities moved thousands of people to the extension
in 1992. They were forbidden to build permanent homes and told their stay
would be "temporary", pending the provision of proper housing.
However, the regime broke its promise and people built the makeshift shacks
that were demolished in an operation launched last week.
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- Sister Walsh, who has worked in the extension for years,
visited the shanty town after the first raid on May 26.
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- "People were sleeping out in the open, many of them
sick, cold and hungry," she said. Police returned on Sunday and Sister
Walsh said children were screaming and sick people were in agony.
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- The nuns had been helping 180 Aids orphans in the extension.
They provided food and basic medical care for thousands. On police orders,
they pulled down their creche and clinic and removed vital medicine.
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- Sister Walsh found two orphans, Peter, 10, and John,
four. "We had provided them with a wooden hut when their mother was
dying and she died in the meantime. These two little people had their little
home destroyed.''
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- Mr Mugabe's latest palace, in the style of a Chinese
pagoda, is about a mile from the extension.
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- The townships overwhelmingly supported the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change in the election in March. His critics believe
that he ordered the demolitions as a reprisal.
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