Squatting in Zimbabwe

[1] Starting in the late 1970s, informal settlements appeared on the periphery of Harare and were routinely demolished, except for Epworth which survived because of its size (about 50,000 people).

[5] By 2015, a housing crisis had developed and informal settlements were booming on the periphery of Harare in districts such as Amsterdam, Borrowdale, Hopley Farm, Mabvuku and Waterfalls, as well as nearby Chitungwiza.

[7] Human rights groups such as Amnesty International condemned the evictions, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling on the Africa Union (AU) to take action.

[8] The AU refused to take steps concerning the actions of an elected government and South African President Thabo Mbeki questioned why the international community was bothered by the situation in Zimbabwe and not by that in the Democratic Republic of Congo where three million people had died in the civil war.

[7] After three weeks of evictions, President Robert Mugabe responded that the operation was a "a vigorous clean-up campaign to restore sanity" in which around 30,000 people had been arrested.