EDITORIAL: Give them flowers while alive

"Peacefully give me my flowers when I’m alive. Only in life, I’ll enjoy the beauty of creation. I have one life. You have one life. Let true love be the mission."These powerful words by Sierra Leonean writer Paul Conteh come to mind when thinking of the situation in Kayova village, Kavango East, to where the nation flocked with prayers and bags of potatoes, after 16 people had died in a hunger-related mass death event.The victims ate suspected poisonous food out of hungry desperation, and leaders from both sides of the political divide scrambled to show solidarity with the survivors.The Office of the Prime Minister said it spent about N$90 000 on the mass burial of the victims, which, to all intents and purposes, was a commendable intervention.Now, barely three months after the chilling incident, life is back to normal for many of those who showed esprit de corps in that moment of darkness.The dead are buried, and the survivors are back to their usual hungry selves – scavenging for anything they can lay their hands on in the thorny forests of Kavango.As Namibian Sun reports today, the family faces starvation again, after everyone packed up and left Kayova – leaving only their words of solidarity behind – and the survivors exposed to the inevitability of death.It doesn’t matter how violently we sob; the dead will never return. We must care for the living now, beyond just words and political stunts.

EDITORIAL: Give them flowers while alive

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-07

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EDITORIAL: Give them flowers while alive

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Namibian Sun 2025-03-07

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