About 172 families that had settled at Nshuri Trading Centre in Nyagatare District have been forcefully evicted by local authorities.

The evictees, who now relocated to Rutare cell, 10km from the eviction area, were flanked by police, army and local leaders, said eye witnesses.

"We saw security and local authorities forcing everyone out of their houses, no question, nothing,” one eye witness who did not want to reveal her name told The New Times by phone.

Claude Mushabe the Executive Secretary of Rwempasha sector confirmed this saying forcing the residents out of their houses was necessary because they had stubbornly refused to move away from that area.

"That area is near Muvumba River, it is a swampy area, you cannot dig a latrine more than 2 meters deep hitting the water surface. It was a danger to residents’ health,” Mushabe said by phone yesterday.

On the question of breaching the expropriation law, Mushabe said that relevant parties sat and discussed but found no reason to expropriate anyone since government had not allocated plots to any person but had unlawfully  settled in the area.

Last year the residents were quoted saying they legally occupied the area in 1995 and there has never been any warning given to them.

Mushabe also alleged that residents have caused insecurity in the area by dealing in Kanyanga, an illicit brew believed to be imported from neighbouring Uganda.

It is also alleged that the residents were polluting the nearby Muvumba River.

The people have however accused local authorities for not expropriating them and treating them like animals during the eviction process.

Mushabe said the local authorities joined efforts to help in the eviction by transporting them to the allocated land where every evictee was allocated a plot.

Despite the allegations that residents were only told a few months ago, Mushabe dismissed the claims saying that it was communicated last year and some moved while others stubbornly refused.

It was reported late last year that 400 residents from Nshuri Trading Centre in Nyagatare District faced eviction on orders issued from the Eastern Province headquarters but no deadline was given.

"Fair treatment is necessary to any humankind,” Kendamba Ndomba, a disabled widow who was locked inside her house for half a day by the authorities is quoted to have said last year.

Another 80-year-old woman, Caritas Bakesha was quoted as saying her house was demolished on Christmas Eve.

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