Zimbabwe has backtracked on its refusal to allow the U.N. to help build emergency housing for people whose homes were demolished in a government eviction campaign. U.N. officials in Harare said Thursday that Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo accepted the assistance in a letter earlier this week. Building is to start next week on the first 10 of a proposed 2,500 units.The government had initially refused U.N. offers to provide temporary shelters for families made homeless by a campaign of evictions in May and June, saying it wanted permanent structures. Yasuhiro Ueki, the U.N. spokesman in Harare, said U.N. officials were now discussing technical details with the government. "We are not talking about tents here," he said. But he added that they would not be conventional houses, even though they would stand on a concrete base and floor. "They are rather small," he said.
| I'll bet they heat hell out of having to sleep under a bush, though. |