Approximately 40 shelters have been erected, and more than 200 people sleep here at night, in appalling conditions. We recognise among those now living there, some individuals and families that we observed being displaced last year: because of the shifting nature of people here, it has not been possible to derive exact numbers of residents or to decide how many are new and how many are returnees. One of the individuals living back here is the father from Case study three. The general living conditions of people and the opportunities for earning a living here are dire. Situation nine Victoria Falls An estimated 60,000 displaced when suburbs were razed Six families interviewed, Victoria Falls: 20 heads of families interviewed, Lupane: Interviews in April and May 2006 In terms of percentage of town demolished, Victoria Falls was one of the worst affected areas in the country. The UN refers to 64% of dwellings being demolished during OM. The authors visited Victoria Falls in April and in May 2006, for a general overview of current living conditions for those displaced. We visited an informal settlement called ‘Mfelandawunye’ (we have to die together), which is a building cooperative consisting of hundreds of families. It has existed since way back before the demolitions. Most people had not developed their stands here prior to OM, but when the other houses they were living in elsewhere in Victoria Falls were demolished, they then erected shacks on their pre-allocated stands. The stands are therefore legally theirs since way back, but the dwellings now being erected are illegal. The shacks are around 3 feet in height, with low walls of cement bricks with asbestos sheets on top. They have been kept low so as not to draw official attention. These dwellings have no water or sanitation and families here have to depend on water from neighbouring structures completed years ago in the same area. Some who did not have stands, are occupying shell-houses that are being built to plan but are incomplete. These housing shells are not part of OG/HK, but were partially constructed years before the demolitions, by members of this co-operative. Shell-house communities Living conditions in these shell-houses are astonishing to observe. Each shell-house consists of only walls, no floors or roof, no electricity, sanitation or water. But each shell has effectively become the location of a small settlement, as families erect shelters within the outer walls of the shells (see photos). More than one family may erect a shelter of corrugated iron and plastic within each room of a shell-house, so that five or six families live in one incomplete building. The shell thus provides some form of protection from the wind, as well as some form of legitimacy and protection from officials: the inner shacks within each shell are not that visible from outside. As these sites are clearly under construction in any case, nobody is paying much attention to the shambolic interior living conditions. We conducted consecutive interviews with families living in one such shell-house community. There were five families living here in April when we first interviewed them; a sixth family had 64