Victims reported to Human Rights Watch that they were threatened with fines and violence if they decided to remain in the area where their houses were demolished.71 Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that police hired extra trucks and took a number of people to a designated transit camp for evicted people on Caledonia Farm. Others were driven fifty kilometers out of Harare and told to find other means of proceeding on to the rural areas. Victims reported to Human Rights Watch that the police repeatedly told them to go back to the rural areas.72 Police and government officials gave no justification for these calls. Instead, they told victims that all Zimbabweans had a rural home to which they belonged.73 These statements were repeated by government officials on numerous occasions. For instance, in response to a question on the impact of the evictions and demolitions in Parliament on June 22, Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa informed Members of Parliament that evicted people would go back to their rural homes, and Zimbabwean citizens of Malawian, Zambian or Mozambican or other foreign origin would be sent to resettlement farms around the country.74 But local NGOs argued that the weak economy has had a severe impact on the rural areas where there are few employment opportunities, poor social services and acute food shortages.75 Local church organizations and charities were left with the dilemma of either helping the government in its objective of relocating people to the rural areas, or watching women, children and sick persons suffer in the cold without any assistance. As a result, some organizations provided evictees with transport to the rural areas. One local priest told Human Rights Watch: Sending the people back to the rural areas has been controversial because other organizations don’t want us to send them to the rural areas. They say its doing the government’s dirty work, helping the government with its relocation policy. But the people have asked us to. We have the names of 200-250 families still sleeping outside registered 71 Ibid. 72 op cit. 73 Human Rights Watch interviews with victims in Harare and Mutare, June 16-July 3, 2005. 74 The Herald newspaper, “State to relocate displaced people,” June 23, 2005. 75 Human Rights Watch interviews, June and July 2005.