The government's controversial clean-up operation took an ugly turn last week when a child died in Tafara after a wall, that police had partially destroyed, collapsed on her, while in another case, police ordered mourners to take a corpse out of a house in Bindura before it was razed to the ground. Two-year-old Charmaine Nyika died on Wednesday in Old Tafara the day police stormed the high-density suburb ordering residents to destroy illegal cottages and tuck shops. Charmaine's mother, Lavender Nyika, is distraught. "I did not imagine this operation reaching the extent of taking away my daughter's life. It really pains me to keep on remembering that she is no more just because of the ill-planned operation," sobbed the grief stricken mother. The clean-up operation code-named Murambatsvina has also spread to peri-urban and rural areas. Last week the government rolled out the clean-up operation, destroying property and "illegal" structures in Murehwa, Nyazura, Makoni, Seke and parts of Mashonaland Central and West provinces. In Bindura's Kitsiyatota mining compound a family, that requested anonymity for fear of further victimisation, said they were mourning their dead relative when police ordered them to take body out of the house before torching the building. "They told us to remove the body and threatened to burn it (the body) if we did not comply," said one family at Shanai Compound.

At Chimoio, another compound at Kitsiyatota, police allegedly almost burnt terminally ill Chawaira Mbadzo, who was bedridden in one of the houses. His mother, Delia Mbadzo, was away at the time of the demolitions but noticed thick smoke coming from her kitchen. Delia said: "Smoke was coming out of the house so I ran towards it. I knew I had left Chawaira sleeping in there. I managed to drag him out, because I could not lift him, before the fire spread to the rest of the house." She lost all her belongings during the demolitions. Chawaira, who has been ill for nearly a year, was due for a review on the day disaster struck. In the pandemonium, Charity Mutasa, from the same compound, went into premature labour and gave birth to a baby girl. She said: "I have never slept in the open all my life and I was so depressed on that day that I went into labour. I haven't had time to even think of a name for her." The displaced families have been sleeping in the open for the past week at Kitsiyatota mining compound on the outskirts of Bindura town in Mashonaland Central. Distraught evictees, mostly descendants of emigrants from Malawi and Mozambique who survive mostly on illegal gold panning in a nearby disused mine, told The Standard the police action was "insensitive and brutal". The evictees said police gave them less than four hours to remove their belongings before their houses were torched and razed to the ground. There are fears of disease outbreak in areas where people are staying in the open and are using the bush for ablutions.

Meanwhile the situation at Caledonia Farm, a holding camp for those displaced in Harare,has been described as "pathetic". The families are overcrowded and there are no health facilities. The operation has left vulnerable groups more exposed and confronting death from starvation and disease, triggering outrage from various human rights organisations and the international community. The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference (ZCBC) said it found it hard that government could "unleash such violence" on innocent civilians. The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) said it deplored in the "strongest possible terms" the ongoing operation that has displaced thousands of families