The Porta Farm evictions took place while the UN Special Envoy, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka, was in Zimbabwe. On 29 June members of the Special Envoy’s team visited Porta Farm and witnessed demolitions and forced removal of people in police and government trucks. The subsequent report of the UN Special Envoy describes how the team was “shocked by the brutality” of what they witnessed.29 Forced evictions and forced displacement from Porta Farm continued on 30 June. Local human rights monitors reported that during the chaos several deaths occurred, including those of two children.30 When the police and government agents arrived at Porta Farm on 28 June and began forcibly evicting people and demolishing homes they were acting despite the existence of two court orders – the 1995 order directed at Harare City Council and the 2004 Court Order directed at the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing. As the forced evictions continued on 29 June 2005, ZLHR obtained an interim order from Norton Magistrates Court on behalf of the Porta Farm residents to the effect that the police or anyone else should not evict or forcibly move them or their property to any other location. 31 Although this order was served on the officer in charge at the local police station and the Commissioner of Police on 29 and 30 June respectively, members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police continued to forcibly evict people from Porta Farm. The police were now acting in defiance of three separate court orders. Even when lawyers approached members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police and municipal police with copies of the three orders and expressed their concern that their actions were clearly in contempt of court, the response of the police officers was that they could not read and that they were acting on “powers from above” and would not stop their actions. In effect their response indicated their belief that they could not be bound by three court orders, including two from the High Court, and that there was some higher authority within the Ministry of Local Government, City of Harare or Ministry of Home Affairs that overshadowed any court order. On 30 June 2005 ZLHR lawyers filed an urgent application for contempt of court in the High Court citing the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development, the Minister of Home Affairs, the Commissioner of Police and the Chairperson of the Harare City Council.32 However the application was dismissed. The court provided no reason for its decision. ZLHR responded publicly to this decision, stating: “With all due respect such a decision remains questionable considering it is common cause that members of the [Zimbabwe Republic Police] and municipal police, acting under the authority and instruction of the City of Harare, the Minister of Local Government, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Commissioner of Police destroyed the Amnesty International interview with Felistus Chinyuku, Chairwoman of Porta Farm residents’ committee, 1 August 2005. 29 Report of the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to assess the Scope and Impact of Operation Murambatsvina by the UN Special Envoy on Human Settlement Issues in Zimbabwe, 22 July 2005, page 61. 30 Local human rights monitors reported that during the attempted forced removals two women - one pregnant and the other extremely ill - fell off the trucks into which they were being herded. A four-year-old child was reportedly run over by a truck. There were unconfirmed reports of a second child dying. Amnesty International and ZLHR followed up on these allegations and are able to confirm the following: The Chairwoman of Porta Farm residents’ committee reports that she saw the pregnant woman fall as she was boarding a truck. After the fall, the pregnant woman was lifted onto the truck. Sometime later a police officer came and told the Chairwoman, and members of the woman’s family, their relative had died on the truck. The family was deeply upset and reported the death to human rights monitors. Days later it became clear that the pregnant woman had not, in fact, died but had fallen unconscious on the truck. Police believed her to be dead, and informed the relatives. She was taken first to a clinic and then to Parirenyatwa Hospital in Harare. She gave birth to twins. At the beginning of August the woman and her twins were reported to be living as IDPs at Hopley Farm. Neither ZLHR nor Amnesty International has been able to interview this woman. The death of the second woman, 38year-old Lois Mandigora from exposure (and not as the result of a fall) was verified by ZLHR. Lois Mandigora was reported to have been seriously ill at the time of the evictions. Four- year-old Fanandi Manyere died when he was run over by a truck on the main highway as he was fleeing from the demolitions. The driver of the vehicle is being charged under the Road Traffic Act. The reported death of an infant has not been confirmed. 31 Norton Magistrates Court Case No. 376/05. 32 Case No.HC3225/05. 28