MALAWI: ECM dares Malawi Government on Land for Nthunduwala ‘Refugees’
Watipaso Mzungu
The Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) Deputy Secretary General Father Joseph Sikwese has challenged the government to act with speed in identifying and allocating land to ‘Malawian refugees’ residing at Nthunduwala camp in Kasungu.
Sikwese made the remarks when Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (CADECOM – Caritas Malawi) disbursed cash and relief foodstuffs to 220 hunger-stricken households in Sub Traditional Authority (ST/A) Nthunduwala.
CADECOM – Caritas Malawi is currently implementing a Food Crisis Project in 11 districts with financial support from Caritas Internationalis and Caritas Italiana worth about K724 million through ECM.
Fr Sikwese said the Catholic Church in Malawi is disappointed with failure by the government to give the families land for permanent residence.
“But I must vow that we’ll not tire in fighting for the rights of these people because they are also Malawians and entitled to enjoy all their rights. And as the voice of the voiceless, the Catholic Church will continue standing with them until they get land for their permanent residence,” he said.
The congested half-acre camp, located about 70 kilometres west of Kasungu Boma, is accommodating over 127 households with a total of about 380 people who became homeless after being evicted from the tobacco estates where they were working as tenants.
The families were retrenched in the mid-1990s after which they trekked to Zambia where they also worked in farms on the encroached western side of Kasungu National Park before being banished and dumped at Nthunduwala in 2012 where they were told they would temporarily stay for one week.
But 13 years down the line, Government is yet to allocate them land to live, forcing the residents to live in conditions that Catholic Church believes is inhumane.
Fr Sikwese said the Church expected that the government would speed up identifying and allocating land to the campers considering the inhumane conditions the campers are living in.
“It is time the government lived up to its word to allocate the families land for permanent residence. We don’t need to have residents in their own land. These are Malawians and the government has a duty and responsibility to take care of them,” he stressed.
The camp chairperson, Stanley Lyson Nkhoma, thanked the Catholic Church for providing them with support in all aspects of life, including nutritional and spiritual nourishment.
But Nkhoma appealed for more support, emphasizing that the residents do not have food as they cannot produce their own food.
“We don’t have fields to farm. This makes us more vulnerable because we literally must wait for relief items to survive,” he said.
In her remarks, CADECOM National Coordinator Chimwemwe Sakunda pledged her commission’s commitment to continue complementing Government efforts to provide assistance to households that were affected by the effects of El Nino early this year.
The natural disasters forced President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera to declare a State of Disaster and called upon the international community, non-governmental organizations and people of goodwill to collaborate with his government in mobilizing financial and material resources for aiding households affected by natural disasters.
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