Game Meat for Flood Victims
Friday, 8th of June 2007

By Petronella Sibeene

WINDHOEK

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has given the go-ahead for three elephants and two hippopotamus to be culled for flood victims in Caprivi where meat from these game species is not only a source of protein but also a delicacy.

It appears the authorization to shoot the three jumbos was taken considering the fact that there has been a rapid increase in the number of elephants that put unbearable pressure on the environment since they eat huge amounts of vegetation per day.

Acting Director of the Directorate Emergency Management in the Office of the Prime Minister, Gabriel Kangowa, confirmed that the ministry approved the slaughter of three elephants and two hippopotamus and that their meat would be distributed to 7 544 people who this year were displaced by floods from villages in the low-lying areas.

Today, officials from the Regional Emergency Management Unit (REMU) will meet to discuss logistics related to the planned butchering of the identified animals.

The animals will not be killed at once, as the affected rural communities usually do not have cooling facilities for the storage of wholesale quantities of meat.

Thousands of the registered beneficiaries remain in need of food, especially meat.

The office of the EMU is currently negotiating with Zambia to import a nutrient-rich dried fish known as kapenta, fished from most of that country’s rivers and dams.

The decision might have been prompted by Caprivi’s proximity to Zambia and the fact that many people from Caprivi were exiled in that country before independence and developed a taste for this particular nutrient source.

Recently, 2 000 bags of 12,5 kilograms each of mealie-meal were distributed in different flooded areas in the region. This was the first consignment of the 10 000 bags secured from a local supplier in Rundu, Kangowa said.

For the past months, flood victims have been eating tinned fish donated by some Walvis Bay fish factories.

Kangowa appealed to other ministries to donate food or anything in kind, adding that even when the victims are repatriated back to their permanent dwellings, they will still be in need of support because they have lost almost everything to floods.

This year, the Caprivi has not just been hit by floods but a vicious drought is also anticipated as herds of wild animals, especially elephants, are reported to have destroyed maize and other staple crop fields hence depriving communal farmers of food.

Villagers along the eastern floodplain are displaced by floods on a seasonal basis while those in the eastern part grapple with wild animals that devastate whole fields.

Although the flood situation is under control, relocation might only take place in August or September this year. All the displaced people are still in camps and relocation would only take place after the Regional Emergency Management Unit (REMU) has assessed the situation.

The Namibia Red Cross Society report for April 2007 shows that although the water level of the Zambezi River is now decreasing, the displaced people cannot return to their homes since villages in the flooded plains are still unreachable and houses are either destroyed or still partially flooded.

Aerial assessments reveal that some villages are still under water and thus the relocated people are likely to stay in the relocation camps where they are currently being housed.

Floods are a perennial phenomenon in Caprivi with devastating floods recorded in 2004. This year the floods were said to have been the worst since 1958.

Flooding at villages such as Musanga, Lisikili, Kalimbeza, Sifuha, Malindi, Schuckmannsburg, Ikaba, Nantungu, Impalila, Kasika, Iivilivinzi and Itomba normally starts from the period March/April, but this year huge amounts of water breached the Zambezi and Chobe rivers and their tributaries as early as February.

The floods affected four constituencies, namely, Kabbe, Katima Rural, Linyanti and Kongola. The severely flooded constituencies were Kabbe and Katima Rural where many villages, fields, cattle and boreholes were submerged.