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Jen Redshaw

The steady knock of hammers echoes across the sandy yard of a church mission in one of Harare's poorest suburbs. Late at night, a group of men are loading wardrobes, beds and chairs onto a truck.

They are victims of President Robert Mugabe's latest brutal attack on human rights.

Last week, police on horseback with dogs rode round Mabvuku, to the east of the Zimbabwean capital, using loudhailers to order residents to pull down their makeshift homes.

'They said 'take your houses down or we will take them down and confiscate your property',' says Father Raymond Mupandasekwa as he surveys the chaos in the grounds of his 50-year old  Catholic mission.

Hundreds of families were forced to dismantle the only homes they had ever known.

Many took refuge in the church hall and yard, bringing with them the beds, wicker baskets, enamel basins, saucepans and plastic sheeting they managed to salvage from their wrecked homes.

Across Zimbabwe, churches  are struggling to cope with the people who have turned to them for shelter. 'No one saw it coming. If they had been given some warning, it might have been different,' Father Mupandasekwa says.

Launched last month, Operation Clear Out Trash has wreaked havoc among Zimbabwe's poorest people. The countrywide blitz on shacks and vegetable stalls has left up to 1 million people homeless - in the middle of winter.

Zimbabwe's chief of police says the operation is meant to weed out 'evil disorder'. But the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says Mr Mugabe wants to punish urban supporters of the party, who voted against him in an election in March - and send them to live in isolated rural areas.

The truck being loaded in the mission grounds is due to transport 10 families and what remains of their worldly goods to the northern Mount Darwin district.

'They will go tonight. There is less risk,' Father Mupandasekwa says.

Driving the church minibus across the potholed roads,  Father Mupandasekwa points out the  devastation.

'See over there? That was a market,' he says, indicating a wide expanse of rubble. Vendors too bore the brunt of police wrath - their stalls were destroyed.

As he exchanges a few words with the people huddled in his church yard, the priest is all too aware he faces tough decisions.

They cannot stay indefinitely.

'The last solution is to send them to the holding camp,' he says.

The 'holding camp' is either Caledonia Farm or  Bobo Farm, not far from Mabvuku.

Press reports say conditions at Caledonia Farm are horrific. There is one toilet - and the scores of people staying there have to book time on the toilet with the police who guard the camp.

This weekend the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference issued its strongest condemnation yet of Operation Clear Out Trash, calling it 'cruel' and 'inhumane'.

But there is no sign of the police ending their onslaught. Instead there is every sign it will intensify.

Harare City Council officials have said that police will soon sweep all council-owned flats and evict 'illegal' lodgers.

'There is worse torment to come,' says prominent newspaper cartoonist Tony Namate.



Poorest feel the brunt of Mugabe's 'Operation Clear Out Trash'