The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
RESIDENTS at a squatter camp in Bulawayo are appealing to the city fathers to relocate them to an area with water and ablution facilities to ensure their health wellbeing or build homes for them.
The shelter named Kitshi Squatter Camp is along Bulawayo Drive in Trenance and is home to more than 300 people including children of school-going age who relocated with their parents following their removal from their previous dwellings at various suburbs in the city.
Sunday News visited the camp and spoke to the chairperson, Mrs Gelie Mathe, who said they were facing a number of challenges.
“I came here in 1986 when I was displaced and had nowhere to go, so I settled here. The Government removed us and we were sent to Gariya in Matabeleland North where we lived but not for long as we returned to this place that we had called home for many, many years,” she said.
She said she joined many others in 2005 who had been removed from various city suburbs under Operation Hlalani Kuhle and settled at the camp. Those displaced had built illegal settlements around the city which were not approved by the city council.
“We are having challenges with feeding children and we have found some people who have said they can provide food for the children so we are building a makeshift kitchen that will be used to cook the food and they collect and go and feed from their homes. This kitchen will also feed those living with HIV who are on Antiretrovirals. We can’t have ill villagers failing to get a decent meal, it’s not good for their health,” she said. — @NyembeziMu
