29 3.5 Losses experienced by farmers In all of this turmoil, the farmers experienced considerable losses, and clearly these could have been mitigated if the ZRP had done their duty according to the law and as required by court orders. Here it should be pointed out that these are losses that are consequential on the unlawful invasion of the farms, and that this illegal interference was condoned explicitly by the Zimbabwe Government. As can be seen from Table 14, the losses were not trivial. Estimates of actual losses of moveable property, property burned, livestock slaughtered or stolen, and crops destroyed were requested in the questionnaire. There were also estimates for earnings lost, which were based on the last year in which the farmers had experienced untrammeled use of their farm, as well as estimates for medical expenses incurred as a result of the invasions. These latter were for treatment for injuries suffered, as well as treatment for disorders due to stress and trauma. Table 14 Gross losses experienced by commercial farmers. Total US$ [averageUS$] Costs of medical expenses 974,557[5,666] Costs of legal fees 1,070,050[5,722] Loss of moveable property 77,788,419[452,258] Value of property burned 25,447,983[148,819] Value of livestock lost 18,394,779[106,946] Value of lost crops 35,176,154[205,708] Value of last earnings 209,298,697[1,216,853] Total losses 368,150,639[1,958,248] The gross estimate for total losses is about US$368 million for this group of respondents. Clearly the biggest losses are experienced in loss of earnings, about US$209 million, but the actual losses are not inconsequential, about US$159 million. If this is then crudely extrapolated to the commercial farm sector as a whole the figures become astronomical. Assuming that something in the order of 4,324 commercial farmers have been evicted 36 from their farms, 36 then the gross amount of losses would approximate It is difficult to be exact about the figures for the number of farmers that have lost their farms, since evictions are continuing and different sources report different numbers. Conventionally, it is assumed that there were 4,500 formers in 2000. The Zimbabwe Government itself stated that 2,652 farms [4, 231, 080 hectares] had been allocated to 127,192 households under the A1 scheme, whilst a further 1,672 farms [2, 198, 814] had been allocated to 7,260 households under the A2 scheme [Report of the Presidential Land Review Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr A Preliminary Report on Human Rights Violations on Commercial Farms, 2000 to 2005.