Kavango Residents Risk Lives Daily for Water

For people living along the Okavango River, water is both a blessing and a burden.

Every day, men, women, and children risk their lives fetching water, doing laundry, or fishing in the crocodile- and hippopotamus-infested waters that flow through their communities.

Earlier this year, tragedy struck Kamutjonga village in the Mbukushu area when a 14-year-old boy was killed by a crocodile while collecting water.

Just weeks later, an elderly woman met the same fate while washing clothes at the same spot. Residents say such incidents have become disturbingly common.

“Every time we go to the river, we go with fear,” one villager says. “But what can we do? The borehole in our village has been broken for months, and the river is our only source of water.”

These heartbreaking stories are not isolated. Across the Kavango East and Kavango West, similar deaths occur – victims not only of wildlife but also of underdevelopment. Despite years of promises, many rural communities in the two regions still lack safe water infrastructure.

The crocodiles and hippos are part of the river’s natural ecosystem, but for villagers, coexistence with these dangerous animals has become a daily struggle for survival. Fishermen brave the waters to earn a living, while women and children fetch water early in the morning or late in the evening – the times when crocodiles are most active.

Local authorities and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism have issued repeated warnings and launched awareness campaigns. In some cases, problem animals have been captured or relocated. Yet these are short-term measures that do little to address the real problem: the continued lack of access to clean, safe water.

It is painful to accept that, in 2025, Namibians still risk their lives just to get water. The Kavango regions remain among the most under-resourced in the country, and the consequences are deadly.

Until every village has access to reliable water sources, the river will remain both a provider and a predator.

For the people of Kavango, going to the river is risky, but it is life.

– Protasius Mahupe

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