By : Ernest Jumo
Zimbabwe: (News Of The South) – At least 134 families are now without shelter after Harare City Council destroyed their houses in Budiriro yesterday afternoon.
The houses belonged under Events Housing Cooperative.
Video and still images hit the internet yesterday 08 November 2020, telling the story of an inconsiderate City Council and as well the haplessness of residents, some who can be seen breaking down emotionally as they look on helplessly while an earthmover tears their houses apart.
It is the onset of the rainy season in Zimbabwe.
In the sky, pregnant dark clouds can be seen on the horizon, signalling imminent rains not so distant.
On the ground a yellow machine makes gridiron patterns in the wet mud, bellowing and mercilessly ripping away at the buildings that had sheltered the families from the rain and other elements until only just then.
Distressed members of the community mill about.
A young woman, baby strapped to her back, wails piercingly in agony, frenzied and frolicking at her deep loss. Her only words are a refrain possibly reflecting what she treasures and trusts most, prayer.
“Oh I worshipped God..I worshipped God..I worshipped God,” she continually says amidst of such contortion and frenzy that the child on her back has to be taken from her safety, whereupon she smashes herself to the ground with violent abandon and rolls in the mud like one possessed of a foreign spirit.
Another woman, seemingly older than the first, has a more coherent argument, a constitutional one too.
“Zimbabwe belongs to all of us. Now what is the meaning of all this? Am I in Botswana that you should destroy my home?” the woman rants at the camera.
Varying household goods of can be seen heaped out in the open.
Matresses, chairs, tables and all manner of human possession show in the images as most of the location is now mounds of rubble while the earthmover sends thuds and crashes of concrete and twisted metal from further up the neighbourhood.
The last video voice-over is clearly that of the producer, sneaked back up after the earthmover in the wake of the destruction. He expresses dismay at the sorry sight before him.
“I’m back now guys it’s now safe,” he says, testifying to the presence of the police alongside the yellow machine.
Things can get pretty messy when Zim Police carry out such operations, which they often do.
Even conventional journalists have at times met with arrests and search or seizure of equipment for filming or reporting on some infamous police actions like the ongoing demolition of human shelter.
What Harare City seeks to achieve by the demolitions is a matter for conjecture but what’s immediately clear is the disservice and inconvenience wrought on a depraved folk, already reeling from the ravages of the Corona Virus scare, it’s induced lockdown, added to the long-standing national economic problems.
The insensitivity of council also shows through their timing.
It is the rainy season and for a plethora of logical reasons many citizens can hardly make ends meet. it is highly improbable that many presently have the resources to take up rented accommodation expeditiously enough to save themselves, family and property from the effects of the present weather conditions.
Council probably never spared a thought for children, women and the infirm who will obviously suffer more from the state of affairs.
And, this is not the first demolition the City Council has conducted against better judgement.
And, it definitely won’t be the last.
This story is based on a series of images and information posted mostly by H-Metro Online.
Comments
About Author
