Police in Zambia have arrested 55 people in Lusaka after residents rioted over a curfew and ban on street vending imposed to control a cholera outbreak, the government said.
Eyewitness News reports that the riots in the densely populated Kanyama township were sparked after police sealed off a market where trading had been banned on Sunday, when the curfew was declared. Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo said that the residents smashed window panes at a local police station and set ablaze one motor vehicle. Kampyongo said police managed to stop the unrest after battling with the stone-throwing rioters for about six hours.
The report says, according to Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya, cholera has killed 70 people countrywide, including 67 in the capital, since it broke out in October. Street vending and public gatherings were banned across Lusaka to prevent the spread of the disease, but residents of Kanyama, where around 370,000 people live, have been defying the order at night.
Zambia’s response to the cholera outbreak has in the last few weeks been a show of force, says a Daily Maverick report. Earlier in January, President Edgar Lungu took to the streets of Lusaka flanked by soldiers in a clean-up operation that saw unhygienic markets and restaurants shuttered. He railed against the city council’s failings. Street vending was banned across the city. But then the government began introducing regulations that granted powers to suppress, starting with a ban on gatherings of five or more people.
The interdict encompassed weddings, funerals and sports events. In one instance, police used tear gas to break up a church service. To prevent travel, Lusaka’s main passport office was closed, while the start of the school year was postponed. In the badly affected Kanyama township, an 18:00 curfew was declared. The residents felt otherwise about the situation and they rioted.
The report says that Zambia wants to be seen attacking the cholera outbreak head-on is understandable, but some of its chosen tactics are questionable at best. It says cholera doesn’t spread through the air, or even by casual person-to-person contact. It has to be ingested through contaminated water or food.
A December report by the country’s National Public Health Institute pointed to water drawn from shallow wells for household use and drinking as the main driver behind the outbreak. And when the fundamentals of cholera prevention – like access to clean water – are missing, markets and public gatherings can indeed become places of transmission.
But, the report says, Lungu’s heavy-handed response to the crisis is a distraction from the fact that his government has failed to provide those fundamentals – and provides one more chapter in a presidency marked by autocracy.
The government says its fight against cholera is bearing fruit. The rate of infection is slowing, and schools and markets are expected to reopen soon. But, the report says, any success Zambia is experiencing has less to do with curfews and crowd control than with leaning in to the basics of cholera management: clean water, proper sanitation and good hand hygiene.
Cholera is a regular event in Zambia. No small wonder: about 4.8m Zambians don’t have access to clean water, according to UNICEF, while 6.6m – half of the population – have no access to sanitation facilities. And this year’s outbreak has hit the country particularly hard, with more than 3,200 cases reported.
The report argues that the next outbreak will only be prevented by investing in access to safe water and hygiene now. Curfews and arrests will be futile in the fight.
[link url="http://ewn.co.za/2018/01/12/zambia-police-arrest-55-in-riots-over-cholera-control-rules"]Eyewitness News report[/link]
[link url="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-01-16-zambia-edgar-lungus-heavy-hand-shows-in-response-to-cholera-outbreak/#.Wl2Y6kxuKYM"]Daily Maverick report[/link]