Helen Ndopu
Sitali Masene
Dophistah Ndopu
Potential Tiyeho
Eric Mabengano
KATIMA MULILO – While Katima Mulilo thrives as a strategic regional crossroads bordering Zambia and Botswana, its lack of formal job opportunities has turned the town into a pressure cooker for youth crime.
Local police and social workers report that traditional law enforcement alone can no longer handle the town’s rising rates of gang rape, housebreakings, and assault, prompting urgent calls from residents for structural economic interventions to engage an idle and desperate youth demographic.
Katima Mulilo is seeing a troubling crime trend, and residents are asking not only about crime but also who is committing it, according to Joseph Nehemia, Namibia Police Deputy Commissioner for Crime Prevention in Zambezi.
“Criminal activities such as assault, housebreaking with intent to steal, theft, armed robbery, rape, and substance abuse, drug possession and use, are the most common committed by young men between the ages of 18 and 35. The Katima Mulilo CBD, Choto, Macaravni, Dairy and Cowboy are hotspot locations for these crimes,” stated Nehemia.
Substance abuse and community in fear
According to police, social workers and residents, substance and alcohol abuse have the youth in a chokehold, resulting in them committing crimes.
A resident who spoke on condition of anonymity, *Cowboy (not his real name), shared that the effects of crime extend beyond the perpetrators.
“It is not only young people who suffer; it is the whole community. When they drink from morning or use drugs all day, at night they become brave; our houses are broken into and our goods stolen for the next bottle,” he stated, adding that “young men stab each other, sometimes to death, and our girls and women are sexually violated.”
Another resident and local vendor, Mwaka Siambango, said that despite a surge in business, she is forced to close her market stall early because she is afraid to confront unruly young people loitering around the market under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
Moreover, residents are gravely concerned by a rise in reports of gang rape committed by young men, echoing police warnings that these crimes are linked to alcohol and drug use.
*Chunga (not her real name) shared that on 10 July 2024 she received the phone call every parent worries about – her then nine-year-old daughter, whom she had left in the care of her sister in Katima Mulilo, had been raped by her 25-year-old cousin.
“This was someone who was supposed to look after her and protect her. But instead, he chose to violate my daughter, she said, with tears in her eyes and a breaking voice.
“The pain of what happened to my daughter, to me and my family, is so deep. My daughter was left to carry a weight no child her age should carry.”
Meriam Mufaya, a social worker at the Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, stated: “The harmful impact of sexual violence on victims and families is layered. Parents, guardians and caregivers often blame themselves for not doing enough to protect their daughters.
Victims report anxiety and self-blame, and families experience shame and social burdens. As a result, most cases go unreported for fear of revenge.
Physically, there can be injuries and pain.” Residents emphasised that policing and arrests alone will not solve the crisis; instead, they are calling for urgent employment creation to absorb the town’s jobless youth.
“We have such energetic youths, but they are idle,” noted Gift Sitali, a 35-year-old business owner in Dairy compound.
Questioning the lack of local infrastructure, Sitali asked, “When you look around in Dairy, Choto, and Cowboy, what is there for a young man to do if he does not have a job or money to start a business?” Despite the current challenges, he maintains optimism that these young people are not entirely lost to crime and can still rebuild their lives.
-newsroom@nepc.com.na
*Helen Ndopu, Sitali Masene, Dophistah Ndopu, Potential Tiyeho, and Eric Mabengano are the first University of Namibia(Unam) students pursuing a Diploma in Media and Communication Studies.
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