BANGULA, 26 April 2012 (IRIN): Dorothy Dyton, her husband and seven children used to make a living by farming just over a hectare (10.000 kvadratmeter) near the town of Bangula in southern Malawi’s Chikhwawa District.
Like most smallholder farmers (småbønder) in this poor Southern african country, they did not have a title deed (skøde) for the land Dyton was born on, and in 2009 she and about 2.000 other subsistence farmers from the area were informed by their local chief that the land had been sold and they could no longer cultivate there.
Dyton and her neighbours did not immediately accept the devastating change in their circumstances.
They had already been removed once from the land during former President Hastings Banda’s regime in the 1970s and had not been allowed to return until Banda’s regime ended in 1994 and the cattle ranch established there by his political ally, John Tembo, had ceased to function.
After receiving the go-ahead from the district commissioner, they continued to farm the land for another season. But in 2010, as they prepared to plant, they were met by a police van and the chief, Fennwick Mandala, who warned them not to come back.
The next day, the farmers again set out for their fields, but this time they were met by tear gas and rubber bullets and that night six of them were arrested and charged with trespassing (ulovlig indtrængen).
Since that time, said Dyton, “life has been very hard on us.”
With a game reserve on one side of the community and the Shire river and Mozambique border on the other, there is no other available land for them to farm and the family now ekes out a living selling firewood they gather from the nearby forest.
The three oldest children have had to drop out of school to help their parents.
“People are not getting enough to eat,” said Isaac Falakeza, another community member. “Some are doing piece work (forefaldende arbejde) on other people’s gardens, others are harvesting water lilies (åkander og andre vandplanter). You can see how malnourished (underernærede) the children are,” added he.
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