Nsanje DC urges defiant communities to move upland
Nsanje District Commissioner (DC) Gift Rapozo has called on defiant communities reluctant to relocate from flood prone areas to reconsider their decisions as there are growing fears that the district may experience more devastating floods this rainy season.
In an interview , Rapozo said the communities still living in flood prone areas should heed government’s call to move upland considering that disasters have already started taking place in other district as a result of the rains.
“The rainy season has started and some districts have already been hit with disasters accompanied with the rains like strong winds.
“Nsanje District itself experienced a devastating hailstorm on Thursday night which destroyed some infrastructure,” Rapozo said.
He added that despite Nsanje not receiving enough rains during in most rainy seasons, the district experiences flood due to water that comes from other districts such as Mulanje, Thyolo and Blantyre.
The DC singled out some people in Traditional Authority (T/A) Nyachikadza who are yet to move upland saying they have to do so quickly because their area is prone to floods.
“I wonder why the Nyachikadza people are giving a deaf ear to our call. We have been warning them but they to be defiant,” Rapozo said.
In a recent interview, T/A Nyachikadza admitted that most of his subjects were still in flood prone areas and will relocate after harvesting their crops.
Efforts to relocate communities in Nsanje from flood prone areas have always faced perennial resistance with most people saying the land they occupy is fertile than the land which they are being told to relocate to.
