Harare demolitions leave families homeless as court orders and stand allocations collide
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Al Jazeera reports that Harare council records list more than 5,000 houses facing demolition under 37 outstanding High Court orders, while residents say they bought stands through council-linked processes.
At about 5am on Friday, August 14, Methro Masunga, 28, was jolted awake by bulldozers and shouting municipal police officers outside her home in St Martins, Harare, Al Jazeera reported. She had spent five years doing laundry and washing dishes in other people's houses to save for a residential stand.
Masunga began paying for her stand in 2015 and received an allocation in 2019, with the arrangement formalised through the city council in 2020 when residents began receiving official documents. Her home was among those demolished; she now lives in a makeshift shelter on the site rather than leave the area.
City council records seen by Al Jazeera list more than 5,000 houses facing demolition under 37 outstanding High Court orders, while a council task force has separately inspected 22,255 sites to identify structures on prohibited or unauthorised land. The full number of people displaced across Harare in 2026 has not been independently established.
Residents point to a consent order issued by Justice Happias Zhou on 29 October 2025 in case HCH5444/25, which set aside demolition notices issued to named applicants in St Martins Extension and barred the City of Harare from evicting them or demolishing their homes without a valid court order. Al Jazeera notes the order did not automatically protect every property in the suburb, and that the available information does not establish whether the individual homes it documented were covered.
Council spokesperson Stanley Gama said the municipality was only demolishing structures built illegally whose owners had repeatedly been warned not to proceed. Mayor Jacob Mafume told NewsDay that residents with approved building plans should produce them during council inspections, while principal housing director Edgar Dzehonye said residents had been warned against building in an area that had not been adequately serviced.
Harare Residents' Trust director Precious Shumba said the town planning department and legal officers in the Chamber Secretary's Department issued directives to municipal police to demolish St Martins Extension homes despite the court order. St Martins Residents Association chairman David Jenje said most members had paid deposits of $5,000 as far back as 2018, with allocations made in July 2019 and allocation letters and agreements of sale signed in February 2020.
Section 74 of Zimbabwe's constitution prohibits eviction from, or demolition of, people's homes without a court order made after considering all relevant circumstances, and the National Human Settlements Policy calls for alternative accommodation before relocations and demolitions. Residents say none was offered. Harare South MP Trymore Kanopula called for a halt to further demolitions until land allocations have been audited and investigated.