Botswana denies removing bushmen

BBC NEWS | Africa | Botswana denies removing bushmen: "Botswana denies removing bushmen
By Barnaby Phillips
BBC News, Johannesburg

Botswana has strongly denied reports that some of the last bushmen living in the Kalahari desert have been forcibly removed from their ancestral land.

The British-based group, Survival International, has accused Botswana's government of ethnic cleansing.

The Botswanan government says bushmen have been leaving the Kalahari, but at their own request.

The bushmen, or San, were hunter gatherers who lived in the desert of southern Africa for thousands of years.

Their traditional way of life has all but disappeared in recent years, and the Botswanan government wants the few hundred still living in the vast central Kalahari game reserve to move to nearby towns."