The Famine Camp
Many
Namibians may think of Karibib as a quiet town, but it once played a
central role in one of the most devastating famines ever to strike the
country. In the months immediately after the harvest of 1913, Ondjala
yawekomba, (''the famine that swept''), began to make itself felt upon the
inhabitants of the Owambo kingdoms in northern Namibia and southern
Angola. The rains necessary for the planting seasons stayed away and the
harvests of 1914 and 1915 turned out to be complete failures. By 1914
hunger was prevalent throughout much of the area, and by famine was
widespread throughout all of Owamboland. At the same time that this famine
was making itself felt, a Portuguese expeditionary force of some 10 000
men, sought to enter northern Owamboland and force the Kwanyama
kingdom of Mandume into submission. After a series of minor battles and
skirmishes, that forced thousands of people to flee southwards, the
Portuguese army attacked Mandume and his soldiers near Ondjiva. In a
battle that began at 7 o'clock in the morning and lasted all day, the
Portuguese pounded the Kwanyama forces, until they finally broke and
retreated southwards. Masses of people, fleeing the horrors of war,
moved south into areas populated by communities already over-stretched on
account of successive years of drought. The Finnish missionary Martti Rautanen, described the famine as the worst that he had
experienced in 45 years of service in Owamboland:
"The present famine is simply indescribable - as
far back as August and still earlier one saw living skeletons from
other tribes wandering down to Ondonga. A great number of such men, women
and children died in the forests, being unable to reach Ondonga. Those who
still had some strength left robbed the weaker of what little they had and
left them lying to die of hunger and t hirst.
Mothers with their sucking babes were found lying dead together; in
some cases the mothers threw their living babies into the bush, being
unable to carry them further. In other cases children a little older after
their parents had died on the road wandered on alone to Ondonga. Of these
children of misfortune I adopted more than 30 but in spite of attention
several have died. Thousands of such unfortunates have come to Ondonga and
distributed themselves more over the whole tribe. The first refuges were
naturally the mission stations and hundreds of people beleaguered our
houses begging for food ... Thousands of people have died so that it has
become a problem how to get them buried, the more so as the people are too
weak to dig graves in the hard ground. Desperate for food, and driven away
from those homesteads that still had food, thousands of people walked
southwards in search of food."
In early November 1915 it was reported that the road
between Otjikoto and Namutoni was lined with dead bodies. Whilst in Tsumeb,
Owambo famine victims, desperate for food and shelter, roamed the
settlement. Many developed dysentery and a number actually died in the
streets of the town. A visiting magistrate reported that there was no
shelter for them in any shape or form and at night they slept on the hill
sides.
The new South African Colonial administration, which had taken over from
the defeated Germans in August 1915, was anxious to get the colonial
economy going again, and desperate for labour. To them the famine in
Owamboland seemed likely to result in positive consequences. As one
colonial official, commenting on the famine noted that it would
"assuredly result in large numbers leaving the country in search of
employment".
Thousands of famine migrants, the majority of them young
men, were put onto trains in Tsumeb and transported southwards via Omaruru
and Onguati to Karibib. By late 1915 more than 4 000 Owambo famine
migrants had arrived in Karibib, many of them in a dreadful condition.
Having been without good food for a number of months these people were
extremely susceptible to gastric diseases. An estimated 650 migrants lay
sick and dying in a series of huts, stables, and sheds that served as
hospitals in Karibib. An official reported on one shed in which the
hospitalized Owambo attempted to survive:
"I visited the sick and was horrified to find some
250 to 300 patients suffering from various diseases no doubt due to
starvation and the long journey to the south. They were accommodated in a
wood and iron building with an earthen floor (approximately 40 by 20 feet)
and barely large enough to accommodate 75 patients. There appeared to be
little or no system in dealing with the sick natives. They were sitting
and lying about the floor, but a few of the worst cases were on beds
irregularly placed in a corner of the building. The stench as I entered
was appalling. This arose from a number of large uncovered buckets
arranged down the centre of the room. I would explain that the greater
percentage of illnesses in the depot are diarrhoea."
Anxious to ensure the survival as well as to establish
some form of control over the thousands of migrants, whom they had
transported to Karibib, the authorities ordered the establishment of a
camp beyond the immediate environs of the town. In early 1916 the
fountains on the farm Hälbichsbrunn became the site of a large camp
in which approximately 3 000 people came to be housed.
A large thorn bush enclosure of approximately 350 metres
square was established, initially without any buildings within it. Outside
the enclosure an old rail road coach was converted into a storeroom. A
building removed from what had presumably been the German wireless station
was erected as the compound manager's quarters. Two wood and iron shacks
were repaired and erected as a kitchen and an extra storeroom. A windmill,
ensured a constant and steady supply of fresh water. In addition to the
windmill there was a well next to which gardens, were established.
Though the camp was established at some distance from
Karibib itself, it lay no more than two kilometres away from the railway
line that led to Windhoek. The Department of Railways was ordered to
construct a siding, where supplies could be off-loaded at the nearest
possible point to the camp, and to provide a sufficient number of lengths
of light rail to permit a line being laid down from the camp to the
siding. In the event the trolley line linking the camp to the siding came
to be constructed by Owambo migrants already in Karibib.
Though the infirm continued to be housed in the various
sheds and shacks that served as hospital buildings in Karibib, the other
migrants were transferred to the camp upon its completion. Initially the
inmates of the camp lived within the thorn bush enclosure without any form
of shelter.
No mention is made in the archives of the manner in
which the inmates dealt with the thunderstorms so characteristic of the
Namibian rainy season. The camp remained in existence for at least two
years. As conditions improved in Owamboland, so labour shortages developed
in southern and central Namibia, and the camp became a depot where
migrants on their way to and Owamboland were temporarily stationed before
being transferred onwards.
(© Ondjala yawekomba: Near death in the streets of
Karibib, by Dr. Jan-Bart Gewald)
|
