Robin-Hammond2

Street children, many of whom lost their homes in Operation Murambatsvina. In the 2005 election Mugabe’s ZANU-PF won overall, but MDC won the urban seats. After the election Mugabe’s government instigated Operation Murambatsvina (‘Clean out the filth’). Every day for weeks on end, soldiers marched through suburbs in all the towns. They destroyed row after row of houses and vending stands, throwing hundreds of thousands of families onto the street in the middle of winter. In the space of two months, more than half a million people had their homes destroyed and several hundred thousand more lost their livelihoods in Operation Murambatsvina. Photo Robin Hammond/Panos/Carmignac Foundation