Nampula: Marere residents fight “land grab” – report

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Nampula: Marere residents fight “land grab” – report

1:47 CAT | 04 Sep 2018

Residents of the Mucopoa community in the Marere neighbourhood outskirts of the city of Nampula are at loggerheads with the local municipal council over what they claim to be usurpation of their traditional lands.

The more than 1,500 families jointly claim that the area, handed over by the municipal council to Lurio University to expand its facilities, has always served as their agricultural resource.

Talking to the community on the ground, Wamphula Fax found that UniLúrio had given an estimated sum of five million meticais to the municipal council to be used to compensate those affected, but that the structure, headed at the time by Castro Namuaca, did not hand it over to the legitimate beneficiaries.

The problem was inherited by Mahamudo Amurane, who was unable to resolve the case before his untimely death. When Paulo Vahanle became mayor, he visited the community of Mucopoa and promised to break the impasse.

But after winning the election and taking over as mayor, Vahanle did not move a muscle to solve the long-standing land conflict, and instead surprised residents with an order to leave the land. The council intends to resettle the residents of Mucopoa in the Mulhakho area and let UniLúrio’s expansion plans go ahead.

The councilman for Infrastructure, Urbanisation and Environment area, Torres Colarinho, was almost lynched by the population when he went to try to persuade them to leave their land in favour of the higher education institute.

Urged to comment on the case, Mayor Vahanle said reason was on the side of the residents, but that he was unable to solve the problem because it was created by his predecessors. He promised, however, to send a group of council officials to negotiate with the owners of the fields, because, he said, one could not stand by and watch land conflicts escalate uncontrollably “because the land belongs to no-one: it belongs to the Mozambican state”.

Source: Wamphula Fax