By Nokuthaba Dlamini
Kachechete Villagers in Victoria Falls have made an impassioned plea to the government to close open pits in their area which have become a death trap following the heavy rains that fell in the past few weeks.
This comes after two boys drowned,with the latest case recorded last Friday.
A 10 year old boy, Pardon Moyo, a pupil Chimbombo Primary School drowned while swimming with his friends.
The village head Esline Moyo said with the on-going rain season, they are now living in fear.
“We are appealing to our government through the local authorities to close this particular pit which has turned into a dam. We lost a young boy just last week and this is the second incident,” Moyo said.
“We have contacted out councillor (Given Moyo from Ward 3) to pass the word for us because as villagers on our own we would not be able to close the pit because it requires a lot of resources,” she said.
“We have an official dam where our livestock drink from about 200 meters from this dangerous pit so that’s why we want it to be closed so that it is safe even for our children to pass through the dam when going to school.”
The deceased boy, according to his grandmother Gladys Maphosa (70) died few moments after he’d requested to go and play with his friends outside their home.
“He left around 3PM saying he was going to play with other children and I assumed that he had gone to play soccer and a few moments after, i heard from the other children that he had fallen into that pit and has not surfaced,” she said.
“At that moment I knew that something bad had happened to him and I became too weak and when I went there I found him already deceased and the other villagers had taken him out of the dam, so my appeal is that government should step in and close the pit because this is not the first time this is happening to small children, and we feel that with these rains it is going to happen again.”
Cllr Moyo said numerous appeals have been made to the authorities to repair collapsing roads and bridges and open pits that are endangering the lives of villagers.
