News shorts

Tsumkwe learners going hungry Over 500 learners at Tsumkwe Primary School are forced to attend classes on empty stomachs, due to delays in the distribution of maize meal for the school feeding programme. Tsumkwe is situated 260km east of Grootfontein in the Otjozondjupa Region. The hostel superintendent at Tsumkwe Primary School, Evangelina Kandjii, told Nampa in a recent telephonic interview that out of the 620 learners registered at the school, 504 are day scholars who depend on Government's School Feeding Programme for their breakfast. Kandjii is also involved in the school feeding programme. Since the beginning of the second term on May 21 this year, the children have had to go without a meal to start their day as the Ministry of Education has not yet supplied Tsumkwe Primary School with maize meal. Omatjete saga continues Farmers illegally occupying farms in the Omatjete communal area have formed a new 'community committee' to contest the eviction order granted to the Zeraeua Traditional Authority earlier this month. On June 6, the High Court ruled in favour of the Zeraeua Traditional Authority (ZTA) by granting them an interim eviction order against the illegal settlers occupying communal land handed over to the authority by the Government in May. The three farms in the Omatjete communal area on which the farmers have illegally settled with their animals have a combined size of 13 917 107 hectares. The land was handed over to the ZTA by the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement on May 2 this year to expand the boundaries of the Omatjete communal area, so that it can sustainably accommodate the needs of the traditional communities residing there. Southern farmers clash A dispute between two farmers from the Berseba area over land continues unabated, despite a Namibian police warning that they stop issuing death threats and criminal charges against each other. Farmer Hendrik Visser and former Keetmanshoop mayor Arnold Losper have been at each other's throats since early May this year over a piece of land, which both claim is theirs. In May this year, Losper laid a charge of trespassing against Visser, who in turn laid a counter-charge of malicious damage to property after Losper destroyed iron poles used to erect a fence on the disputed piece of land in Paradys village. Reports by Nampa