Angolan migrants living at Etunda received foodstuff, blankets and other material items on Friday from the Namibian government and the United Nations.

Minister of environment Pohamba Shifeta, last week spent the day at the camp handing over items.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), through the Namibia Integrated Landscape Approach for Enhancing Livelihoods and Environmental Governance to Eradicate Poverty (NILALEG) project, assisted in acquiring funds from the Africa Borderlands Centre and to commemorate the Human Rights Day with the migrants. 

The NILALEG project is designed to promote a landscape management approach that integrates key agricultural and forest landscapes, reducing poverty through sustainable nature-based livelihoods, protecting and restoring forests as carbon sinks, and promoting land degradation neutrality.

Five focal landscapes fall under this project, of which Ruacana is one. There are more than 3 700 Angolan migrants living at Etunda, in Omusati region.

“They came to Namibia in March escaping hunger back home. Cunene (Angola) provincial governor Gerdina Ulipamwe Didalelwa in May came to Namibia and asked the migrants to return back home to Angola so their government can tend to them,” he said. 

Shifeta explained that they came to Namibia for survival due to the prolonged drought in their country. 

“These people are in informal employment and they rarely receive assistance from the government,” said the minister.

Adding that this should be a wake-up call on the devastating effects of global warming and how people should preserve the environment. 

Shifeta said the migrants have since refused and agreed to only go back once it rains so they can work their field.

He further said that most people living along the borderlands continue to suffer from climate shocks such as droughts, floods or heat waves which threaten most households, if not all, and especially impacts food security.

Shifeta applauded Omusati governor Erginus Endjala for assisting the migrants ever since they arrived in Namibia. 

“Endjala has been hard at work to make life endurable for the people. He has on many occasions called it a crisis which needs urgent resolving but his plea has fallen on deaf ears,” said Shifeta

Endjala said since their arrival, his office continues to seek assistance for the Angolans.

“As government alone we cannot do much, hence our plea to good Samaritans and international communities so they can get the basic needs,” he said.

Endjala has also asked good Samaritans to assist with educational materials as the camp is home to over 1 500 children who are of school going age but do not attend school.  

Caption: Generosity…Angolan migrants living at Etunda received donated items on Friday.

– vkaapanda@nepc.com.na