Zimbabwe Police Detain Church Leaders for Giving Aid to Eviction Victims

Church leaders from Zimbabwe and South Africa have been detained by police in Zimbabwe after attempting to help thousands of victims made homeless by the Zimbabwean Government’s slum demolition campaign.

The Government has been clearing out illegal slums as part of its "Operation Drive-Out Trash", or "Operation Murambatsvina" as it is otherwise known, an operation which has so far left 300,000 homeless.

The latest purge saw hundreds of people, including infants sheltering in churches in Bulawayo, removed from their homes by armed riot police and the ruling Zanu-PF youth militia.

KwaZulu-Natal Bishop Rubin Philip was arrested on Wednesday night, along with three other clergymen, according to Independent Online, one of South Africa’s main online newspapers.

Bishop Philip is working in Zimbabwe for the South African Council of Churches, which just announced the launch of a new humanitarian initiative in tandem with local churches and NGOs in the country in aid of those dispossessed by the demolition scheme.

According to the Independent Online, two senior clergymen were summoned by the state spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation, just before the Bishop’s arrest, in the eastern town of Mutare.

The two clergymen were allegedly interrogated over "negative" reports given to United Nations Special Envoy of Human Settlement Issues in Zimbabwe Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, head of U.N. HABITAT, who was in the country for two weeks to investigate the demolitions.

Just last week a South African church delegation was accused of spying for British intelligence agencies.

The delegation, led by Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, had called on the people of Zimbabwe to make a stronger stand against the government campaign to demolish illegal shantytowns.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday said the forced evictions were "profoundly distressing" and a "catastrophic injustice". According to Tibaijuka, 700,000 people across Zimbabwe have "lost their homes, their source of livelihood or both."

The report prepared by the envoy said: "Indirectly, a further 2.4 million people have been affected in varying degrees. Hundreds of thousands of women, men and children were made homeless, without access to food, water and sanitation or health care."

"It is a profoundly distressing report, which confirms that 'Operation Murambatsvina' has done a catastrophic injustice," Annan said. "I call on the government to stop these forced evictions and demolitions immediately."

Just last week a South African church delegation was accused of spying for British intelligence agencies.

The delegation, led by Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, had called on the people of Zimbabwe to make a stronger stand against the government campaign to demolish illegal shantytowns.