Hundreds of fishermen at Senga Bay’s Nguwo fishing village in Salima have defied sheriffs from Lilongwe who two weeks ago gave them seven days to leave the shores of Lake Malawi where an investor wants to build a five-star hotel.
At least 14 days have gone since the fishermen received the eviction letter from the sheriffs after failed attempts to remove them from the land along the lake last year when the fishing families challenged a court ruling to evict them.
The notice for the fishermen to vacate the land has prompted them to arm themselves with petrol bombs, pangas, bows and arrows to fight against any efforts to evict them from the land where they say they have lived since 1989.
The fishermen started protesting the eviction after an investor, Silrage Sultan, bought their land at K200 000 (about $500) through chiefs, arguing the land supports their livelihoods by acting as a hub for all their fishing and business activities.
While Sultan says he wants to build the five-star hotel on the land in partnership with two firms from South Africa and Zambia, the fishing families say vacating the land would ruin livelihoods of over 18 000 people who benefit from fishing activities at and around the village.
Said Nguwo Village committee chairperson Ibrahim Kachinga in an interview on Monday: “The sheriffs from Lilongwe met our Group Village Head Dalamkwanda two weeks ago and gave him a letter ordering all of us to leave the fishing village within seven days.
“We called the sheriffs, telling them that we are not going anywhere and that this matter is still in court. We also told them that people here are ready to die for this land because they cannot go anywhere else.”
In an interview on Thursday, one of the sheriffs who sent the fresh eviction notice to the village refused to comment on the matter, describing it as “sensitive”.
When the fishermen received eviction threats last year, Weekend Nation visited the village and found most women, men and youths in the state of readiness to fight against the eviction, shouting “we cannot be treated like foreigners. This is our land.”
