By John Muyamba
RUNDU – San people residing at Omega 1 in Mukwe Constituency of Kavango East are starving because they have not received food rations.
Omega 1 is home to over 500 San.
Community members told New Era that since mid-April this year they have not received food rations usually funnelled through the San feeding programme funded by government.
They say they have contacted the Kavango Regional Council and the constituency office through their councillor for relief, but are still awaiting a response.
They say they have no other source of food and totally rely on the government’s feeding programme.
“We are struggling here my friend, we need food but the government is quiet knowing we are restricted from hunting, as that is how we San people used to survive. What can we eat now?” asked one of the San.
Mukwe Constituency Councillor Kalyangu Muliki confimed to New Era that the San community at Mukwe has not received food rations for the past two months.
He said he has communicated their problem to the relevant office but was told there was no food in the warehouse at Rundu, where the food is usually sourced.
“I reported the matter and gave a list of all their (San’s) names to the development planner in the office of the prime minister who attends to problems of the San people of Kavango West and East and we are expecting him to act,” said Muliki who is the councillor responsible for Omega 1.
The development planner for the San in the prime minister’s office, Makumbi Swenyeho, said: “Our warehouse does not have any food now because the drought relief programme has stopped but the San feeding programme is not supposed to stop – so that’s why we have taken all the names of San-speaking people in Namibia and sent them to head office. T
he disaster management offices are going to look into it. We only had roughly 40-something bags that we gave to the people of Likwaterera community 25 km from Rundu. They complained of the same problem so we gave the food to them. But with the help of councillors we managed to get the names of the San people and hopefully very soon the problem will be solved,” he said.