*(🌕) 16 Buhera families evicted from homes of 56 years*
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By Dumisani Chauke, Mirror - Sixteen Buhera families are living in squalor in an old council beerhall at Buhera Office after Village head Marume evicted them from the homes that they have lived at for the last 56 years, it has been established.
A visit to the families this week established that there are 197 women, children, and men packed in one building, and 37 children are out of school as a result of those evictions.
The evictions were carried out at a time the families have planted their crops and they were forced to leave everything.
Village head William Mhere Ngundu said that he and his subjects were evicted on December 9, 2025 by the Sheriff after a protracted land wrangle with Abia Makumbe Marume. He says that the eviction order was through a default judgment from a court session that they were not notified of.
Ngundu said that the evicted families have been reduced to beggars and he produced maps to show that the land belonged to the evicted families. He appealed to the relevant authorities to urgently intervene.
“We are stranded. We have nowhere to go. This eviction has destroyed families, children are not going to school and people have lost their livelihoods. We are appealing to authorities to intervene,” said Ngundu.
Village head Marume referred questions to his son, Amos Marume, who defended the evictions. Marume said that Ngundu and his people illegally settled on their land. He claimed that they are people who came from other places like Bocha and Mutare and accused Ngundu of being a landbaron who is selling land in the area.
Efforts to get a comment from Buhera District development Co-ordinator Freeman Maviza were futile.
The court order said that the land occupied by the families belonged partly to Chatindo and the other part to Marume Village. The families were evicted at a time when they had planted their crops but had to leave them.
Holding her one-month-old baby, Dorcas Bvukundwa who has eight other children said life has become extremely difficult for her family after the eviction. She, her husband and nine children all sleep in the same room.
Bvukundwa gave birth shortly after the eviction and she was alone with her children in a tiny room at the beerhall where they are squatting. At night she shares the room with her two goats.
“I gave birth in a room where it was just me and my children. Neighbours arrived later. When my husband is around, we all sleep in that same room with our children,” she said.
Five of the children are now out of Marume Primary School after the evictions.
Pasipamire Ndigume who has five wives and 20 children says he ran a banana, sugarcane, avocado and mango plot and survived on selling the fruits. After the evictions has nothing to feed his family with.
“I had fish ponds and sugarcane which I harvest and fill a seven-tonne lorry and go to sell in Murambinda. I also have avocado trees, banana trees and mango trees. These projects sustained my family, but now my livelihood is gone and I am now at zero, with no starting point,” he said.
Ngundu has since filed an application for condonation to challenge the default judgment.
The dispute dates back to 2011, when a land boundary disagreement arose between Ngundu and Abia Makumbe Marume. Chief Makumbe’s court initially ruled in favour of Ngundu.
In 2013, Marume appealed and the matter went to the Murambinda Magistrates’ Court, where it was again ruled in favour of Ngundu. Marume then approached the High Court in Harare under case number HC 6324/13.
On March 23, 2015, the High Court granted a default judgement in favour of Marume applicants after the respondents failed to appear.
“These people settled in this area illegally through their village head William Ngundu. They are not of the Ngundu or Makumbe clan. Some came from as far as Bocha and Marange in Mutare, others from Nyashanu area in Chapanduka,” he said.
He alleged that the families bought land from Ngundu. Mirror
