On a global scale, Uganda is not known for land/mudslides but they have recently intensified as heavy rains continue to pound the Mountain Elgon slopes. On March 1, 2010, landslides killed over 300 people and displaced another 5,000 in Bududa, the worst natural disaster so far. Ten years later, life has crawled back to normalcy. But the area continues to be flagged as uninhabitable and it is not a matter of if, but when the next disaster will strike as Frederic Musisi writes.
The calm, quiet haze of the early morning settled on the villages of Nametsi, Nankobe, and Kubewo in Bududa district on the first day of March 2010. Residents had seen hundreds of days like this, and they had little reason to expect any surprise.
They woke up and carried on with their routine chores before retiring to their places of abode in a drenched evening. Then came the surprise like a thief in the night, except this was deadly.
Heavy rains peeled rubble off the fragile steeps of Mountain Elgon burying houses, gardens, and barrelled past everything in its path. The normal rains and thundering sludge had raged on for three months before but that too would pass or so the residents thought, after all they had seen it before even when it claimed a few lives. In Nametsi, residents had seen a crack that cut deep on the slopes, but they ignored it.
After weeks of the army-led search-and-rescue efforts, the toll had been huge, never seen before; 5,000 homeless, and 365 people dead.
The government put up an internally displaced persons’ camp at Bulucheke sub-county headquarters, where displaced communities were accommodated. With the rains relentless and news of the horror all-over, residents from neighbouring villages took refuge at the camp.
President Yoweri Museveni visited the disaster area in the days that followed to commiserate with the victims.
Later in October that year, government embarked on resettlement of victims from the camp where living conditions had become deplorable, not to mention the chaos of managing it including claims of inflated costs. The victims were relocated to Panyadoli village in Kiryandongo district.
The senior disaster management officer in the Office of Prime Minister, Pamela Komujuni recounted in an interview that they pondered several options, “and relocation and resettlement to Panyadoli where we had land we partly used for a refugee camp was the most viable.”
“First, we developed a strategy; how do we sustainably resettle such a large group of people? We put our heads around it, as a multi-sectoral responsibility, and decided on what to entice them with, including 2.5 acres of land—more than what many owned in Bududa, put up a primary school, a health center IV, a and police station. That informed our decision to eventually move them.”
The 2010 landslides are considered the worst natural disasters that Uganda has ever experienced. Prior to the accident, government had proposed resettlement of people from the district when was still part of Manafwa but owing politics the efforts were upset and eventually curved out as a district in 2006.
A painful change
Change is a painful experience of our lives, they say. The same can be said for some of the 603 families that allowed to be relocated almost 400 kilometres from the landslide prone villages to Kiryandongo.
Panyadoli village, Mutunda Sub County, a vast flatland darted with thickets, tucked away some 10 kilometres from the main Kiryandongo town of Bweyale, partly accommodates a settlement camp for mainly South Sudanese refugees, a majority of whom have been repatriated home.
Like in other refugee hosting districts, the locals—a mix of tribes including the settlers from Bududa—and refuges that remain, live in adjacent communities. The relationship is both hot and cold, amidst pressure on the limited social amenities; one health Center IV, one primary and secondary school, for a population of more than 5,000.
However, hundreds of settlers are living in deplorable conditions; in houses made of threadbare tarpaulin, some with large families, and others struggling to make ends meet—some could easily be mistaken for refugees. Being part of the cattle corridor, Kiryandongo is likewise prone to extreme climatic variations—floods and droughts.
During a recent visit, the Local Council (LC) 1 chairman of Panyadoli A village, Julius Wereka, narrated that besides the 2.5 acres of land and the few social facilities put for them, government also promised to construct permanent houses but only 100 were constructed and until today they don’t have titles to the said land. This worries them.
“When we had just come everything was okay but as time went on government abandoned us,” Wereka narrated, adding, “After 100 houses were constructed from 2011 to 2014, the rest don’t have houses; some have improvised and others are too poor to afford.”
As a result of the deplorable conditions in Panyadoli, Wereka revealed that, some of their colleagues opted to return to the disaster-risky Bududa.
“Of course, they maintain their land here which they rent out as they wait for conditions to improve. Others live in-between Panyadoli and Bududa, often crisscrossing when conditions in one area are favourable. Also, after primary seven, our children cannot go to secondary school as there is none around, so we send them back to Bududa,” Wereka said.
He, however, argued that since relocation and resettlement was on voluntary basis, a majority of locals refused this option.
“I don’t remember government officials asking for bribes as it is alleged by some for not coming here. People just refused to come because they were not sure of where they were going,” he said, adding, “On learning that those who had moved were doing better they started making up all stories, like that of bribery. The only thing we blame government for is bringing and abandoning us here, otherwise resettlement was the wise thing to do.”
Today, the settlers’ community has grown to a population of 1,569 people.
We found Cyrus Webwaya, a father of eight at his house made up of nothing but torn tarpaulins. He narrated that he was among the first people to be relocated and yet did not get a house.
“If I hadn’t lost everything in Bududa I would have gone back long time ago. Here, I am just counting each day that comes and goes,” he lamented.
Komujini acknowledged that government fell short on some of the promises made mainly as a result of financial constraints and competing priorities.
“Adaptation is a complex process and depends a lot on people’s ability to get used to a new environment. First, these are people who were moving from mountainous areas which is different from Kiryandongo so some were bound not to like the area but I am happy to note that those we relocated remained, and in fact by 2014 we noted that some 300 families had come on their own.”
She said that they are aware of allegations of extortion and bribery made against OPM officials, which they investigated and found baseless. “It was the people trying to bribe our officials to get onto the lists,” she contends.
The official revealed: “We did not give them land titles, which was deliberate because we knew that for some, after getting them they would be selling off the land to move elsewhere. We have records of families we allocated land and we have their titles; our plan was to give them out after ten years which we thought is enough time to integrate. I think there’s also need for more social services.”
Few lessons learnt
Back in Nametsi and surrounding villages, the memory of the 2010 tragedy still looms large and there is fear that disaster could strike again, but life has to go on.
Small towns sandwiched between the evolving Mountain Elgon slopes are bustling with business, gardens are flourishing, and homesteads are strewed all over. In Nametsi alone there could be at least 700.
The area Member of Parliament, Godfrey Watenga, revealed that the population of the area has since grown higher than it was ten years ago.
“Due to the appalling conditions that people found in Kiryandongo after OPM failed to meet the promises they made, how do you expect more people to agree to resettle somewhere else?”
There are two primary schools one of which accommodates 800 pupils from nursery to primary seven. The schools had been closed but parents reopened them and formed committees to run them to provide their children with basic learning.
Walking around from village to village, residents continue to notice red-flags as heavy rains pound the area.
Peter Weboya, whose home lies directly in the path of the 2010 landslides, shrugged off the fears. Not far from his home is both a memorial site for those that perished and relics of two excavators that were used in the rescue efforts.
A retired teacher, Weboya narrated that he declined to be relocated from the danger zone and has no regrets.
”Those who accepted did so hoping that they would get support from government throughout but by mid-2011 the taps had closed. There were many bad stories from Kiryandongo; people were starving and we would send them food from here,” Weboya recalled, adding, “Accidents happen everywhere and landslides come once in a while so why would I move?”
Constant Mpuya, the LC1 of neigbhouring Kihurure village said government pledged to relocate everyone and that is the last they heard.
“We keep hearing reports that we refused to move but it is not true. We were willing to move but some of us did not get opportunity so we had to come back,” Mpuya said.
Separately, Barbara Namutosi who lost part of her family recounted that the process was not straightforward but some of her family members were moved and others remained. “Why would we remain in such a place if we had somewhere else to go?” she asks.
The district LC 5 Chairman, Wilson Watira also discounted the claims of corruption made by the residents. He argues that many just did not want to leave their cradle land.
“But there have been several other smaller landslides, and we have been relocating people from different villages. The first phase of resettlement happened early last year in 2019 during which we took 50 families to Bulambuli; the second phase happened early this year and we took 55 families.”
So, from 2010 to-date, Watira revealed that they have relocated about 700 families from Bududa out of the target of 2,000—people leaving in areas classified as high-risk zones. “We hope a day will come when we will have moved everyone,” he shares.
Another disaster looming
Meanwhile, another deep crack has since developed at the same scar that peeled off in 2010, and by all means it is not a matter of if, but when the next disaster will strike.
The Bududa district environment officer, Marion Namono explained that geotechnical studies carried out have shown that, “a much larger area of Bududa is susceptible and hence not suitable for human settlement.”
“The issue is on software [minds] of the people. We have sensitised enough but they [people] don’t seem to appreciate the situation. We cannot abandon them so the central government has to keep monitoring the area,” Namono added.
According to the disaster risk profile by OPM’s National Emergency Coordination and Operations Centre (NECOC), almost 70 percent of Bududa is uninhabitable as are the surrounding districts. Bududa is equally suffering from environmental degradation, from murram excavation, quarrying, sand mining, riverbank encroachment, and over cultivation on steep slopes, which are said to be contributory to the disasters.
Namono said government currently operates a voluntary resettlement action policy, which makes it hard to relocate people forcefully from disaster risk zones.
This, Komujuni acknowledged but indicated that a master plan is now in place and going forward, once communities have been relocated from such areas and resettled they will be made to sign certain legal documents committing not to return.
“We are doing this with the group we relocated to Bulambuli,” Komujini notes, adding, “The disaster risk zones will now be rehabilitated and gazetted into conservation areas. This is our long-term plan but we are constrained by resources.”
A 2010 study by the now Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Goretti Kitutu titled “Landslide occurrences in the hilly areas of Bududa district and their causes” detailed that the main landslide types are debris slumps which occur where water concentrates. The top soils also have a high infiltration rate which allows fast flow of water into the deeper clay rich horizons, promoting water stagnation that causes slope failure, with rainfall as the main trigger.
“The challenge of some of the hilly areas not being affected as compared to others heavily devastated leaves more questions to be answered,” Dr Kitutu wrote, further warning that the situation is likely to become worse because the sediment from landslide will cause siltation of river channels and wetlands downstream resulting into floods and affecting more communities. This is what has been happening in the past years. The clouds are gathering and the looming disaster sends a chill down the spine.