NAMIBIA: Preparations to evacuate Caprivi villages

JOHANNESBURG, 24 March 2004 (IRIN) - The Caprivi Regional Emergency Management Unit (REMU) is preparing to evacuate villagers after the Zambezi river rose above the six-metre mark over the weekend. Dotson Kamwi, REMU's secretary, told IRIN the water level of the river, which flows along the eastern border of Namibia's Caprivi Strip and then through Zimbabwe, reached 6.57 metres on Wednesday. On the same day last year it stood at 4.15 metres. The river is almost at last year's peak level of 6.64 metres, when it burst its banks and displaced about 12,000 people in the floods that followed. The Zambezi has been rising since October last year and seven villages had already been submerged, Kamwi told IRIN earlier this month. The affected villages are Muzii, Nankutwe, Namiyunu, Nsundwa, Itomba, Malindi and Schuckmannsburg, all located in the low-lying areas along the river, in northern Caprivi. REMU has obtained some boats from the defence force, "but we still have yet to get an estimate of the number of people we will have to evacuate," Kamwi said. A REMU team was out on Wednesday visiting the affected areas to assess the situation. An assessment team from the Namibian capital Windhoek, comprising government officials and representatives from the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund and the Red Cross were expected to arrive in Caprivi on 27 March. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said its Namibian office has been monitoring the situation and was ready to intervene. The Namibian Red Cross helped 8,700 flood victims last year. "Emergency response is an essential part of the water and sanitation programme in the region, be it in flood or drought situation, as thousands of people are threatened yearly by waterborne diseases such as malaria, cholera and diarrhoea," an IFRC statement said.