Table 3: Levels of urbanization, urban population and percentage of slums Europe S.S. Africa Lat. Am. & Caribbean East Asia West Asia CIS Zimbabwe Total Pop, (000s) 726,315 667,022 526,657 1,364,438 192,445 282,639 12,800 Urban Pop (000s) 534.263 231,052 399,385 533,182 124,943 181,182 4,600 % Urban 73.6 34.6 75.8 39.1 64.9 64.1 36.0 % Slum 6.2 71.9 31.9 36.4 33.1 10.3 3.4 Slum Pop (000s) 33,062 166,208 127,567 193,824 41,331 18,714 157 Source: UNHABITAT, 2003 As in the case of the informal economy, local authorities turned a blind eye to these developments. Neither their own resources nor those transferred from central government enabled them to supply the requisite infrastructure and services to meet housing demand. By 2004, backyard tenancy had become a dominant source of housing for low-income households living in urban areas. In Mutare, for example, the mission was informed that there were 34,000 backyard extensions compared to 27,000 legally recognised and approved dwellings. In Victoria Falls, they comprised 64% of the housing stock. The sudden decision by central government to enforce laws and standards is clearly inconsistent with its own policy statements that had previously identified those same instruments as an obstacle to the provision of housing for low-income groups. The implementation of the Operation was effected without consultation with local authorities responsible for compliance and enforcement of the said standards and norms. Furthermore, the Operation was conducted, in the vast majority of cases, in contravention of many of the statutory procedures laid out by Government’s own Regional Town and Country Planning Act regarding prior notice to households concerned and the possibility of ex-post regularization. The Operation has unleashed a humanitarian crisis by destroying homes, assets and means of livelihood for hundreds of thousands of women, men and children people at a time when the economy is already on its knees. A Tale of Two Evictions Operation Restore Order was not the first experience of evictions in post-independence Zimbabwe. For example, an estimated 20,000 residents of Churu Farm, lived on a tract of 260,000 hectares on the outskirts of Harare acquired in 1979 by the late opposition leader and onetime archrival of President Mugabe, Ndabaningi Sithole, who subdivided the land and rented out plots. By 1993, Churu Farm had become a well functioning community with a primary school and other amenities. In November of that year about 300 armed police, acting on government orders, moved in after giving the community a week’s notice to leave, and evicted them. Many of the families were resettled by the Government on Porta Farm, 40 Km south of Harare. Porta Farm was later demolished on 28 June 2005. For over twenty years, the Killarney Farm community lived on government land on the northern outskirts of Bulawayo. They numbered some 800 people. On 8 June, police told them to remove their belongings pending demolition of their homes. Four days later, on 12 June, the police launched a dawn raid. Giving people barely enough time to wake up, they set homes alight and razed the place to the ground. Many people lost not only their homes, but their possessions as well, along with their livelihoods in the informal sector. Save for 17% of the community, no-one had rural or other homes to which they could go. 26