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Freedom Mupanedemo, Midlands Bureau

MORE THAN 200 families who were last year evicted from Chemagora Forest along the Kwekwe-Gokwe highway are now back at their homesteads.

This followed a Government reprieve allowing them to go about their business until alternative homes are identified.

Government early last year evicted the families who invaded the forest about six years ago and parcelled stands to each other.

The families had, since their evictions early last year, been living along the Kwekwe-Gokwe highway where they had erected makeshift structures while waiting for Government to find an alternative home for them.

The villagers yesterday said they were now tilling their land.

“I have started tilling land and we are happy that our Government is a listening Government.  They have heard our cries and they have said we should return to our homesteads until there is land for us to be to be relocated. At the moment we can do whatever we want,” said Mr Arnold Ziranda.

He said he has been living by the roadside with a family of eight in a single makeshift hut. 

“We were living in squalid conditions and we are very grateful to the Government. We have been in the Chemagora for the last six years and we had nowhere to go,” he said.

Mrs Lynette Nyambo said she became a widow at Chemagora.

“When my late husband married me he was staying in the Chemagora area and when we were evicted, I had nowhere to go so we were just staying by the roadside,” she said.

Mrs Nyambo said she was happy to be back at her homestead.“The week we were told to return to our respective homesteads, the area coincidentally received some rainfalls and we have started tilling the land,” she said.

Midlands Provincial Lands, Crops and Livestock Officer, Mrs Madeline Magwenzi said the families were back at their homesteads while Government searches for an alternative place to relocate them.

“They have been given the greenlight to plant and go about their business while an alternative place for them is being identified,” she said. 

There have been clashes between Government officials over the Chemagora evictions.

The clashes resulted in President Mnangagwa dispatching a high-powered Ministerial delegation led by Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement Minister, Air Marshal Perence Shiri to look into the matter.

Minister Shiri said then that Government was yet to find an alternative place to resettle the affected families but insisted it would do everything necessary to help the affected.