Some members of the San community claim to have been removed from the government's special feeding programme, leaving vulnerable communities hungry.

The Otjozondjupa Regional Council confirmed this last week.

The Marginalised Communities Special Feeding Programme, under which community members receive food parcels quarterly, was introduced in 2005.

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Members of the San, Ovatue, and Ovatjimba communities in the Kavango East and West, Kunene, Ohangwena, Omaheke, Omusati, Oshana, Oshikoto, Otjozondjupa and Zambezi regions were identified as recipients.

Food parcels include maize meal, beans, fish, beef and cooking oil, with distribution coordinated through traditional authorities and constituency councillors' offices.

For Katrina Kazungu (38), the programme was a lifeline until her food parcels were discontinued in 2018.

Kazungu, who is unemployed, says she is now left without a reliable source of food or income to feed her six children.

She says she is originally from the Hai//om community at Etosha National Park in north-central Namibia, but had to move to Okahandja with her children.

Without employment, Kazungu survives by collecting empty bottles and cans.

"Sometimes I ask for food on the street or from my neighbours, or wash clothes for payment. They cannot always help me. Even if you come to my place now, there's no food," Kazungu says.

She says she has approached the constituency councillor's office to register for food handouts, but her efforts have been unsuccessful.

Another San community member, Belinda Garoes, says she has not received food for about a year and a half.

She says she registered for the programme in 2023 but her food aid was stopped a year later when she was told she is not a member of the San community.

"I went to the governor's office and he sent me to the regional councillor and they told me the same thing. I was registered, and those who registered me know I'm San," she says.

The Okahandja constituency councillor's office last Thursday said the Otjozondjupa Regional Council through the marginalised communities division is responsible for the distribution of food aid.

Otjozondjupa region development planner Petronella Golo says a meeting held in 2024 resolved that non-marginalised communities and pensioners were benefiting from the programme and had to be removed.

"The deputy minister (for marginalised communities) and councillor with the assistance of the committee said we should remove those who are not San and pensioners during the next distribution.

"That's how some people were removed from the list of beneficiaries with the assistance of the committee," Golo told The Namibian on Friday.