Mozambique: Pemba City Council unable to allocate land to IDPs – Watch

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Mozambique: Pemba City Council unable to allocate land to IDPs – Watch

3:38 CAT | 28 Aug 2020

Screen grab: Miramar

Pemba Municipal Council says it has no land to offer the displaced teachers who requested plots for temporary housing at a meeting.

The teachers, who have fled terrorist attacks, arrived in Pemba and other destinations only to suffer overcrowding in the homes of family members hosting them. Those without family members have been obliged to rent homes.

“It is always good for the family to start over,” said Vasco Ruela, a displaced teacher interviewed by Miramar. “It is in this sense that we have asked the government and Pemba Municipality of to find us land.”

Micas Muianga, director of the Territorial Department, Urbanization and Management of Municipal Land at Pemba municipal council, regretted he was unable to immediately oblige.

“In order to obtain the reserve area land for the internally displaced, there is a process: that of fair compensation for the local communities who have been exercising their activities and customary practices there. The creation of a municipal [land] reserve for this purpose was not foreseen this year,” he explained.

While there is no solution for these teachers and other displaced people,

Complying with Covid-19 preventative measures in overcrowded housing will be difficult, but this is not the teachers’ only concern. The cost of living, they explain, is much higher in Pemba than in their areas of origin.