Zimbabwe

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe says it will compensate local and foreign White farmers who lost land and property more than 20 years ago in farm seizures meant to redress some of the wrongs of colonialism.

About 4,000 White farmers lost their homes and swathes of land when the Black-majority country’s then-president, Robert Mugabe, launched the often-chaotic redistribution program in 2000, which turned violent at times. Mugabe, who died in 2019, said it was aimed at addressing colonial-era land inequities after the southern African nation gained independence from White minority rule in 1980.

… The seizures badly impacted commercial farming, forcing a country that was a key regional food producer and exporter to rely on assistance from donors. Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector has rebounded in recent years, but recent droughts are now the main challenge.

Two decades after thousands of white farmers were forced from their land without compensation, a new generation is back to start again

Family after family fled along this dirt road towards Harare as they were evicted from their farms by Zimbabwean war veterans.

The road through the country’s prime, red-soiled land was a front line in Robert Mugabe’s policy of seizing white-owned farms, first implemented more than 20 years ago.

The luckiest farmers were given enough time to collect up their belongings and stack them in the back of vehicles. Others fled empty-handed, chased, often violently, from their farmhouses.