Oshana’s pits of death

AN AIR of uncertainty swirls around the village of Emono in the Oshana region, where the community lives in constant fear for their safety.

Illegal sand mining at this tiny village in the Okatana constituency has left villagers at the mercy of the wide, open craters created by the illegal mining activities.

These pits, which have now been filled with water after the rainy season, have proved to be a hazard to people and livestock alike.

At greater risk are school children who pass close to these death traps on their way to school. Parents fear that a simple slip along the narrow pathways that pass between the pits, could be fatal.

Some homesteads have been virtually surrounded by these pits and reduced to islands, while others stand precariously at the edges of the massive pits.

Farmers have also complained of constantly losing their livestock, which fall into the open pits that are not fenced off.

“Sand mining is causing land degradation. When it rains, the top soil is washed away. Our environment has now been destroyed,” a concerned resident, Israel Amadhila told recently.

Amadhila, who has lived at the village for decades, said life at Emono has been affected by these dangerous pits.

“Our children can no longer play or walk around in the village freely. Anyone of us can fall into those massive pits and die because they are not fenced off and they are too close to homesteads. This is totally unacceptable and it needs to be stopped immediately,” he said.

Some villagers have abandoned their homesteads and mahangu fields due to the illegal sand mining.

At the centre of allegations of illegal sand mining is acting village head Jason Johannes who is accused of profiteering from the activity.

The villagers accused Johannes, of receiving bribes from business people to ignore the villagers’ outcry.

Pandu Linus, another resident of Emono village accused Johannes of making huge profits from allowing sand mining for a number of years now.

Johannes denied the allegations, saying that an environmental impact assessment was undertaken to grant miners the right to extract sand at the village.

“All those extracting sand were granted permission by the Uukwambi traditional authority to do so. I did not authorise anyone to extract sand,” he said.

Uukwambi Traditional Authority, spokesperson Rehabeam Iita said the authority had granted an environmental clearance certificate for sand extraction at Emono village to a number of business people after an environmental impact assessment was conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.

“The miners were granted permission to extract sand by the traditional authority and their activities are not illegal. The community members have also been extracting sand from those pits for their own use for some time now and only when we stepped up and stopped them from unlawfully extracting sand have they started to complain,” he said.

Iita added that the traditional authority charges N$150 per truck load, of which 45% goes towards the village’s bank account and the other 55% goes towards the account of the traditional authority to be used to rehabilitate the pits.

“We do not dictate what the village headman does with the money that goes into the village’s account. It is all up to the headman and his villagers to decide what to do with their money,” he said.

The villagers are therefore calling on the traditional authority to rehabilitate the open pits and fence them off to allow the free movement of both humans and animals.

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