Cops 'evict' 10 000 from Harare
15/05/2006 13:00  - (SA)  

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Harare - Police in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare have rounded up more than 10 000 squatters and street children and plan to send them to rural areas, reported the state-controlled Herald newspaper on Monday.

Under an operation codenamed "Round Up", the Zimbabwean police netted 10 224 people, many of them vagrants, touts and what the authorities called "disorderly elements", said the report.

A spokesperson for the Zimbabwean police, Munyaradzi Musariri, said: "We are going to relocate some of the vagrants and street children to their homes."

The operation comes almost exactly one year after President Robert Mugabe's government launched its controversial "Operation Restore Order", which saw the demolition of thousands of shacks and cottages in towns and cities across the country.

The United Nations said at least 700 000 people had been left homeless and jobless by the campaign - a figure disputed by the Zimbabwean authorities.

According to the Herald, police said street children and vagrants were responsible for many of the crimes committed in the Zimbabwean capital.

Musariri said: "As police, we will not rest until there is sanity in the streets and the operation is continuing."

Operation Round-Up was launched on April 12, just ahead of the onset of winter.

 

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