Harare, Zimbabwe – 21 May 2025.
It’s the kind of scene that leaves jaws dropped and minds baffled — a red brick wall, neatly constructed, stretching the length of a railway line as if oblivious to the very purpose of the track beneath it. This was the shocking discovery in Harare’s Willowvale Industrial area over the weekend, where residents and workers stumbled upon a wall brazenly built along — and across — an old railway siding.
The horror of the situation was immediate: rail tracks clearly visible beneath a fresh trail of mortar and bricks, a structure standing defiantly where locomotives once rolled. For many who saw it firsthand, the question wasn’t just “how?” but “how on earth was this allowed to happen?”
The images, which quickly went viral on social media, sparked a storm of outrage and disbelief, prompting the Harare City Council to step in. On Monday, Mayor Jacob Mafume confirmed that the wall was erected without council approval and would be demolished.
“Our development control team has visited the owner. Apparently, they believed NRZ had no objections,” Mayor Mafume wrote on his official X account. “We advised that all walls require council approval, and the wall or part thereof within the required distance from the railways will have to be demolished. Demolition will take place tomorrow.”
Investigations by the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) confirmed that the line in question was part of a disused, privately owned railway siding that once serviced a now-defunct factory at 44 Tilbury Road. While the NRZ admitted it had no operational control over the disused siding, it acknowledged the wall’s construction was inappropriate and deferred the matter to the City of Harare.
Photos taken at the scene tell the story in vivid detail: two parallel iron tracks sandwiched beneath a red brick wall, now visibly beginning to buckle under its own flawed design. In one image, workers in blue overalls and a front-loader tractor are seen beginning the demolition process — bricks scattered on the ground, the wall bowed and crumbling.
Urban planning experts say the case highlights a deeper failure in enforcement and urban land management.
“This is beyond negligence — it’s absurd,” said one planner. “You don’t build on railway lines, disused or not. It sets a dangerous precedent and shows how far planning laws are being ignored.”
The wall is scheduled for full demolition on Wednesday morning, with city officials supervising. The incident has sparked a wider audit into unauthorized constructions across Harare’s industrial zones, where illegal developments have become increasingly common.
As one witness put it: “It’s not just a wall. It’s a symbol of how chaos sets in when rules are ignored.”