Persons of foreign origin The status of people of foreign origin—mostly from neighboring countries—is also in limbo, following Operation Murambatsvina. Interviewees told Human Rights Watch that police repeatedly told them to go back to their countries even though most were born and raised in Zimbabwe or have lived legally in Zimbabwe for many years.122 Such persons are now also without protection, no rural villages to return to and no access to a remedy. Blessing, married with three children, thirty-eight: I have no where to go because I am originally from Mozambique. I came here in 1983. My wife is Zimbabwean from Seke but she has no home there. The police told us to go back where we came from. The police came without notice and told us to demolish our house on June 4. We slept outside for sixteen days and then we started sleeping in the church office. The police came with guns and told me to destroy the house. My wife was at work. I have been living in Mbare since 1996. I was a lodger living in a two room cabin. My wife works in an orphanage. People who were refusing to demolish their houses were being beaten by the police. I never went to the city council because there was a long waiting list and I don’t have a plan at the moment to find a house because I don’t have the money. Right now I am sick and I have malaria. We are sleeping on the floor of the church office. My youngest has a big sore on the back of his head and we went to the hospital where we were given a prescription but we can’t afford the drugs. I can’t go back to Mozambique because there is 122 Human Rights Watch interviews with victims in Harare and Mutare, June 16-July 3, 2005. In 2001 the government introduced the Citizenship Amendment Act to prohibit dual citizenship. Under the act those Zimbabwean citizens in possession of foreign passports who did not formally renounce their foreign citizenship within a stipulated period of time were classified as aliens or foreigners. In 2003 the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act [Chapter 4:01] was amended again to allow people who were born in Zimbabwe, but whose parents came to the country as migrant workers from a SADC country, to confirm their citizenship of Zimbabwe by signing a special form renouncing their foreign citizenship. However, the amendment was published after most of the people concerned had already lost their Zimbabwean citizenship, and were therefore unable to confirm their Zimbabwe citizenship. 31