Who are the Sqautters, and how did they get to be homeless?
A year or so ago, The Zimbabwean government, (Zanu Pf), decided to clear
out the country's slum areas, in order to make their cities cleaner. They *said*, that this would a be of benefit to poor people living in slum areas because alternate housing would be built for them.

In July 1005, the government began these clean-out operations.
They arrived in slum areas with guns and dogs, chasing people out of their homes, using brute force when nessesary. They then set the peoples property's on fire. Many of the people were then instructed to hop on a bus, and the buses then drove to remote, rural areas, simply dumping them, and leaving them to fend for them selves.
Others were able to go to relatives or churches to find help. One such church, in Bulawayo, (which I visited), had hundreds of newly homeless people sleeping in the main bulding the night after the raids. A few nights late, police broke into the church at around 2-am, and forced all the people who'd taken refuge there to board a bus- these people were then dumped in various locations.
Where are they now?
In july of this year, I visited many of the squatters. Most seemed to live in large groups, with as many 8 or 10 sleeping together in tiny, cramped spaces, in little corrugated-iron huts, under rubbish bags, ets. They are without basic nessesities such us running water, electricity, and blankets. With 85% unemploment in Zimbabwe, there is no hope for most of them to get jobs and work their way out of their situation.
It's important to understand how desperate these people are. My team and I visited them, distributing items such as blankets, bags of grain and beans, shoes etc. On several occasions, we ended up leaving a place with hundreds of men, women, and children chasing after us. I remember on one occasion a young mother with a little baby girl was begging me to give her a blanket. Her baby was cold at night, and she was sick. You know what? I really, really, really wanted to give her a blanket.......there were none left. We could never help everyone we met, because there were always so, so many people. And as if being cold at night wasn't hard enough, many of these people are beginning to
starve, and almost all of the sqautter babies and kids we met were severely malnourished.
There is some people in Zimbabwe working to help these people, however.
Epowerment programs, where the people are given resources and taught skills such as candle-making, are helping a few to set up businesses. There are some places, including a few churches, where squatters can go to recieve medical treatment, and many squatters will spend whole days walking to get to these places. For many, though, none of this help is availiable.
Read the stories of sqautter kids;
Abson Princess