Hulene rubbish dump collapse: Victims demand the houses they were promised

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Hulene rubbish dump collapse: Victims demand the houses they were promised

3:02 CAT | 29 Jan 2021

Carlos Pedro owes four months' rent and is threatened with eviction.

The City of Maputo has stopped paying the rent for the homes where the more than 250 families affected by the collapse of the Hulene garbage landfill live. They say they are now facing eviction.

Families whose homes were destroyed by the collapse of the Hulene garbage dump February 19, 2018 say that they have been abandoned by Maputo municipality.

At the time of the Hulene dump collapse, Maputo city council was headed by mayor David Simango. The municipality relocated more than 250 families who lived near the dump to Albazine, a neighbourhood more than 20 km from the centre of the capital.

Caption – Carlos Pedro’s family owes four months of rent and is threatened with eviction.

“If they kick me out,” Carlos Pedro, one of those relocated, tells DW, “I can only take my family to the municipality, because it was the municipality that destroyed my house. In any case, I am taking my family to the municipality. They will know what to do. I have nowhere else to go, nor do I have a sibling who can take us in.”

Debts and abandonment

Many of the families affected say they are accumulating rental arrears. Relations with landlords are strained, says António Maolela.

“Relations with the owner of the house used to be easy. There was a good understanding among us because we paid in advance, we had no problems. But at a certain point, the municipality stopped paying on time and we are having a lot of difficulty, even with the landlords,” Antonio reveals.

The neighbourhood secretary, Bernardo Cumbe, says that several approaches have been made to the municipality, now headed by Eneas Comiche, but no reply has been forthcoming.

“The municipality despises us. We have already contacted it several times, but the municipality has never satisfactorily responded to our request. So we are very concerned, because our complaints have not been well addressed,” Cumbe complains.

Presidential intervention

A residents’ association of those affected has been formed, led by António Massingue, who wants President Nyusi, who visited the place at the time, to solve the problem.

“We want the head of state to take our situation to heart – just as he went to Hulene at the time and showed us that, in fact, he was concerned for his people. We want the head of state to step back in time, look at us and say: ‘Enough time has passed, we promised to organise the houses in one year, this is the third year’. So, it is a enough time to see the suffering of the people,” Massingue says.

Sixteen people died when the Hulene dump collapsed in early 2018. The municipality removed other families at risk at the time.

Source: Deutsche Welle