Landless and left out

Skaaprivier Valley farmworkers, who live in corridors within the Khomas Hochland, have pleaded with President Hage Geingob to address their homelessness, so their children do not inherit a drifter's life. A group of protestors gathered on Saturday at Aris, about 20 kilometres south of Windhoek, where they handed over a petition to Windhoek Rural constituency councillor Penina Ita. Upon receipt of the petition, Ita urged the community to unite and reminded them that the Namibian government caters for all its people. One of the petitioners, Immanuel Karukuao, asked the government to explain why they have not been given preference in terms of resettlement in the area. “Our parents were born here, we were born here. We have nowhere else to go, we have been chased off the farms by the new farmers,” he said. Karukuao said it is painful that they cannot - like “white people” - take their children around their land and say “this is where your great-grandfather was buried”.According to him some of the farm owners in the area have even demolished their ancestral graves. “They brought bulldozers to wipe away the graves. Now the bones are scattered. On other farms the wild animals have dug up the bones,” he said The leader of the protestors, Lazarus Awaseb, said their biggest heartache is that they have not had access to ancestral graves on these farms for years. In fact, they themselves have no place where they can be buried, when they die one day. Awaseb also said most of the farms in the Skaaprivier Valley belong to absentee landlords, who have appointed locals as foremen. “Imagine, we started working on these farms as 12-year-olds. We opened the gates for their guests, we looked after their animals and now that we are old we are chased off like animals,” he said. Demands The group, who identify themselves as the Gugagub community, demanded that they be recognised as the indigenous people of this particular area. They also are demanding land so they can make a decent living and have a place they can call home. “We trust and hope that our call for fair and justifiable land reform, as a previously oppressed and marginalised society, will receive the necessary attention it deserves and that lost ancestral land will be reallocated to the indigenous people of the Skaaprivier in the southeast of Khomas rural,” the petition said.JEMIMA BEUKES

Landless and left out

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-18

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Landless and left out

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Namibian Sun 2025-09-18

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