Staff Reporter
RESIDENTS of Kasikili Island, an area of the Oneshila informal settlement of Oshakati which is surrounded by water pans and was — for that reason — named after an island in the Chobe River on the Namibia/Botswana border, are pleading with the Oshakati Town Council to relocate them as a matter of priority.
The Town Council has, since early this month, moved over 100 flood-affected households from the informal settlements to Onawa high ground following consecutive heavy downpours.
A number of houses in Kasikili are either flooded or surrounded by water, and residents there too are urging the council to relocate them as a matter of urgency.
PICTURED: The flooding in Oshakati’s Kasikili Island. Photos: Placido Hilukilwa
Petrina Makanda, a single mother of four minor children, said that she lives in constant fear for the lives of her children and that her entire life has been turned upside down.
One of her children is epileptic and is at high risk now that even the kitchen and the latrine are underwater.
Nangula Absalom, whose house is on the edge of a water pan that is currently overflowing, said that she lives with two children, but they are currently on vacation in the village. “In January, they will return to a house that is completely surrounded by water, and they will have to walk in water on their way to school,” she said.
Agatus Antanga, the chairperson of the Local Authority Development Committee in the Oneshila informal settlement, visited the affected households twice and has alerted the Town Council about their situation.
Makanda said that during previous flooding they were temporarily moved to high ground and their flooded houses were broken into in their absence. “We now need a permanent relocation,” said Absalom.
The Town Council is permanently relocating households, mostly from the flood-prone Efuta (Sea) area of the Oshoopala informal settlement, to Onawa Township, where each beneficiary household is allocated a free single residential erf.
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