Namibia: Heavy Rains Bring Misery

While many Namibians have celebrated the recent good rains, Natalia Jonas (29) woke up with soaking wet blankets yesterday morning, after her shack was flooded on Sunday.

She is one of many residents from Otjomuise 8ste Laan in Windhoek who were left stranded after heavy rains damaged their shacks.

Jonas has been living in the area for five years.

“I have a three-year-old child. If it starts raining in the night, we will have nowhere to go but to sleep in the water and maybe drown.

“My bed, documents… everything is destroyed by the rain, I have nothing left.”

Despite approaching the municipality about the situation, Jonas says residents in the area have received no help.

“We have community leaders who said the City of Windhoek knows about this but still there is no improvement, year in year out we have the same issue.”

“We slept in wet blankets because we are close to the riverbed. We need help, maybe to be moved somewhere safer,” says Eli Ugwanga (38).

While hanging her wet blankets out to dry, Ugwanga explains that people relieve themselves out in the open due to a lack of toilets in the area, and when it rains it is unhealthy.

“Some of our children did not go to school today because their uniforms were wet. Some people’s documents were destroyed.”

Resident Lukas Shivaku (28) was surprised to arrive home and find his shack full of water.

“It’s not clean water, it was dirty water from the streets and all the drains nearby.

“This is not healthy for us.”

Shivaku was preparing for exams and was devastated at losing his documents and textbooks.

“I found my books floating in the water. It will be expensive for me to buy the books again.”

For now, Shivaku needs to figure out how to fix his shack and replace his textbooks, while Johanes Heita (27) doesn’t even know what to do next.

“We want to be relocated somewhere better, where our things will not be destroyed.

“Some of our belongings went with the water when it was flowing to the valley. We lost our pots, documents and other important things,” Heita says.

Community leader Liu Mushongo says the situation will surely get worse when it rains again, and there is little they can do about it.

“The municipality knows about this, we have been reporting it for years but there’s no improvement.”

However, Mushongo adds that when residents are moved by the municipality, other people will build in the same place.

“Last year, residents were moved but other people still came to build their houses. What can I do now? We do not have the power to move people, it’s the municipality.”

The chief of emergency and disaster risk management at the City of Windhoek, Raymond Kapiya, says shacks in danger zones need to be relocated.

“The emergency team assisted residents yesterday but our purpose is to save lives, lives are more mportant than property.

“They are all informal dwellers who are settled here illegally,” Kapiya says.

The municipality has been engaged in assessments to determine who can be relocated since last year.

“Relocation does not happen in a day but that is recommended,” says Kapiya.

By Namibian.