Namibia: San Community Faces Eviction

press release

A Khwe community living in Namibia's Western Caprivi region has been threatened by the Namibian police with unlawful eviction from the houses they occupy. They currently live in Omega 1 - a former army base set aside for the San, mainly Khwe, by the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement, which is situated on the traditional lands of the Khwe. However, in 2007, the Namibian government proclaimed the area as the Bwabwata National park, effectively stripping the Khwe of their ancestral land.

According to Tini Mushavenga, the Secretary for the Karamachan Association (KA), the police came to Omega 1 on two separate occasions, July 10 and July 15, this year. On the first occasion, the police came to a KA Board meeting to talk about "housing issues". At the meeting, they informed the KA that the Khwe community have to move from there as police officials require them as police barracks. On 15 July, a different police officer came, and again told the community that they would have to move from there. Mushavenga told a Namibian daily newspaper that they'd been told that "those who don't follow orders will be removed by force".

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