Ghana among "worst violators of forced evictions"

According to a research conducted by Amnesty International and the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) Ghana is one of the worst violators of forced evictions in Africa.

The new study revealed that, over 7,000 people in Ghana were made homeless when they were forcibly evicted by the Game and Wildlife Division from the Digya National Park in March and April 2006. The eviction was halted in April only after a boat carrying over 150 evictees capsized, causing the death of at least 10 people. Those remaining in the park still live under threat of forced eviction.

Some 800 people also had their homes destroyed in Legion Village, Accra in May 2006, while approximately 30,000 people in the Agbogbloshie community of Accra have been threatened with forcible eviction since 2002.

The research indicates that some two million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes and many thousands have been made homeless since 2000 in Nigeria, while more than 12,000 people were forcibly evicted from Dar Assalaam camp in Sudan in August 2006.

The government of Zimbabwe staggered the international community in 2005 when, in a military style operation, it forced an estimated 700,000 people from their homes, their businesses or both. Angola's capital, Luanda, has seen the eviction of at least 6,000 families and their homes were demolished since 2001.

In Kenya approximately 70,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their homes in forest areas since 2005, while at least 20,000 people have been forcibly evicted from neighborhoods in or around Nairobi since 2000.

And in Equatorial Guinea at least 300 families have been forcibly evicted from their homes since 2004, when the government embarked on a program of urban regeneration in Malabo and Bata.

The two organizations called on African governments to halt forced evictions and abide by their international human rights obligations.

See Full report: http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGAFR010092006