A new U.N. report condemns the Zimbabwe government for its campaign to destroy urban slums. People who have seen the report to be publicly released Friday say it calls on the government to stop the demolition immediately.
The report commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls the demolitions indiscriminate, unjustified and carried out with indifference to human suffering.
The document was prepared by U.N. special envoy Anna Tibaijuka of Tanzania, who says hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless by the actions, and more than two-million others have been affected by them.
The Zimbabwe government has defended the crackdown on what it calls "illegal structures," saying they were hubs of criminal activity.
Ms. Tibaijuka - who heads the Nairobi-based U.N. Habitat organization - spent two weeks in Zimbabwe to investigate the impact of the widely-condemned operation.
Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.