MAZOWE, Zimbabwe, Sept 23 (AFP) - The image is picture-perfect when the children gather outside for an assembly at their rural hilltop school north of Harare, with singing, dancing and story-telling on a crisp spring morning.

But the words are grim, as children sing about their parents dying of AIDS and tell of their fear that their government will drive them from their homes.

"Unless there is a miracle, my future is bleak. My grandmother is too old to care for five of us," one boy said, as he finished reciting his poem.

He was embarrassed to have his name used, although at this school he is one of 66 children orphaned by AIDS.

Sixty-five now, explained deputy headmaster Peter Kusikwenyu. One 14-year-old girl has left the school. Her extended family could no longer afford to care for her after her parents died, so they married her off, he said.

About one-quarter of all the students attending schools on white-owned farms are AIDS orphans, found a survey last month by the Farm Orphan Support Trust (FOST).

They are among the lucky ones. One-third of AIDS orphans living on farms have dropped out of school, either because they cannot afford the fees or because they do not have a birth certificate, the survey said.

Seventy percent of AIDS orphans on farms do not have birth certificates, which means they are not allowed to take exams to complete seventh grade and move on to high school.

They also cannot access government welfare programs, obtain a national ID card, or receive a legal burial if they die, said FOST director Sue Parry.

But now the orphans face an even bigger problem, if they live on a farm like this one which is among the thousands the Zimbabwe government has earmarked for resettlement.

"People currently being resettled are coming from homes. Those being displaced from the farms are losing their home, and where do they go?... What answers do we give these children?" Parry said at a recent meeting of white farmers.

An average of 12 orphans live on each farm, according to FOST. Multiplied over the more than 2,000 farms earmarked by the government for resettlement, more than 24,000 orphans could find themselves homeless.

When parents die in farm communities, the children can often continue to live in their parents' home, and receive support from relatives or neighbors, said Parry, whose group provides counseling and other services to the orphans.

About two million people live on Zimbabwe's 4,500 white-owned farms. The farm laborers and their families are not guaranteed new homes under the government plan to resettle more than five million hectares (13.35 million acres) of white-owned farmland with poor blacks.

About 151,000 families stand to lose their homes under the scheme, according to the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), which represents farm workers. That could mean as many as 1.3 million people will become homeless.

Parry recounted one 15-year-old girl's fears at a recent counseling session.

"I am afraid what will happen to us if we all have to leave," the girl said. "Where will we go? Will we still be able to stay together? Will I have to care for my sisters and brother? I don't want to be a prostitute."

But children's advocates are warning that kids will be forced onto the streets unless the government takes their needs into account.

"Sometime next year, the streets will be full because the fathers will not be able to look after the kids, and the kids will have nothing to do on the commercial farms," warned Moosa Kasimonje, executive director of the Just Children Foundation, which cares for street children in Harare.

He told the Zimbabwe Independent weekly that girls are especially vulnerable.

"A girl child cannot last in the street for a day" without being harassed, he said.

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