This family is clearly in dire straits, health‐wise, money‐wise and socially. However, they
stated that they would maintain their claim to the homestead in the resettled area as they
have no other claim to a stand anywhere. Nonetheless, they would welcome a move to any
other place where their neighbours might leave them in peace. They also felt there was no
future for them at Tsholotsho Business centre.
Out of 25 people originally dumped in this Gwayi rural area, only five (two adults, three
children) remain. However, they are currently not at their rural homestead, but in the local
rural business centre. They have clearly failed to be allowed to make a success of rural
farming and would not stay if they had another option.
Situation three
Rural district, Matabeleland North
One extended family of 4 adults (brothers and their wives) and 6 children
Originally from Ngozi Mine informal settlement
Interviews: May 2010
This family was pictured in Crime of Poverty (2005) living on an open veranda in a rural
district. They had a three‐month‐old baby and had lived in seven different places in three
months as a result of the demolitions. They were originally from Ngozi Mine. They had been
forcibly relocated to the rural area by the police, being among those abducted from the
churches in July 2005.
Out of the first family unit of five, the mother and baby girl were dead by August 2006. The
baby had lived in ten places in her eleven months of life. Her father was still alive in August
2006, and her eight‐year‐old brother was living with a grandmother.
Update 2010
In November 2006, the father from this family unit had also died, leaving the 8 year‐old boy
an orphan. He was sent back to live with his uncle and family, who were back living in
Killarney by then.
Out of the second family unit of five, in 2006, they were shuttling between Killarney and their
rural homestead allocated to them post OM in Tobotobo, and one of the children had severely
burnt her feet walking in a fire. The family is mired in poverty, and cannot afford to have the
child seen to be doctors. She appears to need her toes amputated as she cannot put on shoes
and has to walk over ten kilometers to school bare footed.
Situation four:
Bulawayo urban:
15 year old girl
originally from three roomed house: displaced when landlord’s relatives displaced.
This girl had the terrible experience of being raped as a result of being stranded in a bus
station without money to get home to her rural area, after she was displaced as an
unaccompanied minor from her backyard shelter by the demolitions. She was kept for three
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