Back in the early 2000s, life was very interesting because of the beauty of the place and town called Kilembe. Due to the existence of the mining company in the area, the Canadians had built a well-organized accommodation camp for their workers.
From there, you would proceed to Kanyaruboga East, which was known as “Kisonda,” with some self-contained houses and well-planned living quarters.
Kanyaruboga West was the wing for wooden houses, which were for some senior officers. The final two parts were those of Bulembia and Kyanjuki, with Kyanjuki assumed to have been for the general labourers.
All the above communities are in one way or another connected to the river Nyamwamba, and to ease movement, beautiful bridges were been constructed to connect the different communities and enable movement in the shortest time.
Due to its beauty, it became a routine for schools to pay visits during the holidays to Kilembe Mines Limited because the place not only ranked as the third-busiest town in Kasese but was also a great tourist as well as academic site.
The beauty of the place lay in the chairlifts that used to transport mine workers to the mountains for work, the underground tunnels for the mine, as well as the extensions of the great Mt Rwenzori.
For festivities and merrymaking, the community had a place of enjoyment called Kisementi where people gathered from all the corners of the accommodation camps as well as the mountains to enjoy the festive seasons. Currently, this place houses Kilembe Mines hospital.
It had never occurred to the community that staying in Kilembe would one day become a reason for people to screen their faces. The last decade has indeed made life unbearable for the people of Kilembe.
THE FLOODS ARE A CONTINUOUS THREAT!
On May 1, 2013, the mighty Kilembe changed drastically. As the rest of the district was preparing to celebrate Labour day, the community woke up to the sound and smell of dirty water.
Within a few hours, it was reported that some structures had started collapsing because the river had diverted from its course and had infiltrated the community. It was panic time. The worst part of the floods was that the river carried boulders with it, and with these, it was always easy to take down any structure.
Initially, people thought that the heavy downpour was “usual,” and they had to enter their houses to wait for the rain to stop and resume their normal duties. There was a particular man, “Morufu,” who was suffering from a mental impairment.
He came in the rain trying to warn the people to vacate the houses because the situation was getting worse, but due to his state of mind, they didn’t take his warning seriously. When the people saw water flowing just in the direction of the road, they thought it was mere rainwater flowing and that it would suddenly dry up later.
There were some people who decided to lock themselves up in their shops that were located along the road, still with the hope that the rain was only going to last a few hours. No one expected anything ugly to happen because the place was in a presumably safe spot.
As time went on, the water increased in volume, some bridges were washed away, and people’s homes were swept away by the water. Three gentlemen and a lady who had locked themselves in a shop did not make it. They perished. The electric poles were not saved, and with the sweeping away of the bridges and roads, inflation kicked in. People didn’t know where to go or where to start. Life became dark!
The biggest desire at that point was to leave Kilembe and save lives. But where would one even go? Roads were destroyed, bridges were down, and desperation had the better of the community. With the destruction of bridges, transiting between places became very difficult. With the destruction of electric poles, darkness loomed.
10 YEARS LATER—ANYTHING?
Ten years later, the situation has not changed much. The road network is still very poor. Electricity has never been reconnected, and the schools that were affected by the floods are still grappling to reopen.
As for the community, even the makeshift bridge that was serving them was washed away in March this year. The river is being crossed on foot. This situation might be exacerbated by the continuous rain that the country is experiencing.
Since around 2014, a few interventions have been made, but still, the river has been a great threat to any of those interventions. One of them was the replacement of the Kyanjuki-Bulembia bridge that connected to Kilembe SS.
However, when the river broke the banks again between 2016 and 2020, the bridge was not spared and was completely washed away, taking the community back to zero. To make matters worse, Kilembe Mines hospital was equally flooded. It has been re-established in what was once a club, Kisementi.
However, this is only temporary. It can only handle patients who do not require serious medical attention. From 2013 to date, at least every year from May to October, there has always been a report of the river overflooding and causing damage to property as well as claiming the lives of people.
The worst part is that most of the areas the river damages, like the residential areas in the valley, cannot be replaced due to the threat and the costs involved in re-establishing those settlement areas. Footbridges have been made and washed away. Interestingly, the trees from which the bridges are made have also been washed away to a large extent.
IS THERE HOPE?
Further damage can be prevented, and normalcy can be restored to the once-fresh town of Kasese. Several people have urged the residents of Kilembe to leave the area and go to safer places. But that leaves some questions unanswered: if a place becomes unsafe, till when shall people keep on migrating in the hopeless desire of finding greener pastures?
Can’t the people be taught how to coexist with nature? What did the earlier inhabitants of this place do to stay there for 50 or more years without ever being disturbed by the river?
Further damage to Kilembe can be alleviated if stakeholders think about some of the practices that, according to tradition, kept the earlier inhabitants safe and comfortable.
INTERVENTIONS
It is widely believed that the riverbed is small because of silting. When the water comes, it can hardly make its way through the riverbed; so, it is forced to find alternatives. Therefore, desilting comes in handy. Much as it has been applied lately, it has been done on a few sections of the river.
Meanwhile, there is need to construct high walls on the banks of the river. The constructed river banks that had been in place since the 1960s were washed away by the 2013 floods. Their absence means that water can flow at any time to neighboring communities.
What’s more, the community need to be educated on the appropriate farming methods. Poor farming methods can hardly be ruled out as the cause of the narrowing of the river. In some instances, people have not only cultivated but also constructed near river banks.
Without the above and some other measures being put in place, it is estimated that with time Kilembe will cease to exist since every time the River Nyamwamba overflows, it goes with some part of the surrounding areas.
This was witnessed in 2020 when some parts were completely washed off the map of Kilembe itself; for example, some parts of Masule village and the famous township, which had a trading center and a secondary school (Royal Ranges SS), plus all the communities below, and an area that accommodated around 100 homes, are now inhabitable with only stones and sand.
The story of Kilembe and the floods is one that can be told over and over. However, the story of its reconstruction is one that requires a concerted effort from both the government and the local stakeholders.
It is home to several people, and as such, a blanket statement that ‘the people should leave’ the place needs to be made after all efforts to rehabilitate the river have failed.
However, that being so, the people of Kilembe need to limit any practices that are against environmental conservation. Amidst all this, the community continues to wait for government to deliver on its promises of reconstructing Kilembe.
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