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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 5. 3rd April 1974

Nothing hidden from NZers

Nothing hidden from NZers

Mr R. Munkuni, the Commissioner for Refugees viewed our request to visit a settlement with sympathy, stating that he hoped that such a visit would be informative, not only to us, but to our fellow New Zealanders.

For practical reasons (mainly concerned with time and finance) it was agreed that we should visit Nyimba. Mr Munkuni explained that this settlement was different from the ones at Mayeba and Mayukwaukwa because at Nyimba all the refugees live in the settlement, with farming done on an adjacent farm. Since the Nyimba settlement was created, Zambian Government policy has changed. Instead of all the refugees living close together within a confined space as they do at Nyimba, the other two settlements provide each refugee family with ten—twelve acres on which they build their dwellings and on which they farm. As a result, population density is much lower at the two more recently established settlements. This is a relatively new policy for any country to adopt, and in many respects it is regarded as a model of how refugee settlements should be run.

The Refugee Officer at Nyimba is Mr R. Mwanza, a civil servant attached to the Refugee section of the Ministry for Home Affairs. Although we arrived on a Saturday he was most co-operative, and for over two hours he discussed the life of the settlement with us. There was no-where that we were not allowed to go, and nothing that he told us we were not allowed to photograph.