Appeal for aid to displaced

A Zimbabwe human rights group has appealed for funding to help repatriate the last remaining group of displaced people it was sheltering who were driven from their homes by pre-election political violence.

ZimRights director Munyaradzi Bidi told IRIN his organisation plans to start returning some of the remaining 335 displaced people on Wednesday, but said resources have been exhausted after caring for nearly 6,000 others who returned home after the election.

Bidi said although the situation in some of Zimbabwe’s districts was still volatile, ZimRights is confident many of the displaced can go back. The police commissioner, according to Bidi, has offered to provide a police escort for those returning. They will be travelling to their homes in Mashonaland East and the Midlands, provinces they were forced to flee due to political violence launched mainly by supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF.

“Many of the displaced families have to start rebuilding their lives from scratch after their homes were destroyed and possessions looted after they ran away,” Bidi said. He added that ZimRights has spent about US $40,000 in assisting the displaced since the violence erupted in February in the run-up to the June parliamentary elections.

The victims, said Bidi, know who the perpetrators of the violence are and that his organisation has passed on these names to the police. “The police, however, seem reluctant to effect arrests, which suggests to the perpetrators that they are immune from the rule of law,” Bidi added.

The victims of the violence, he said, need emotional and material support to help them cope with their losses. He said some of them - who include civil servants - have not reported for work since running away from the intimidation.