Thursday, March 28, 2024

Riots break out in Kanyama over Street Vending as HH calls for calm

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Burnt truck in Kanyama riots
Burnt truck in Kanyama riots

Kanyama residents whose livelihood have been disturbed by the decision to ban street vending have fought running battles with riot police.

The residents who mobilized themselves this morning blocked roads, burnt tyres and threw stones at police officers who attempted to quell the unrest.

The residents were protesting against their removal from the streets and the curfew imposed on them by government.

Police threw teargas canisters which chocked several residents including elderly women and children.

Some of the residents who used to trade from the streets are demanding that they be allowed back on the streets as it is their only source of livelihood.

Samuel Mwale, an eyewitness said police fired excessive teargas which choked many innocent people.

“Please can someone to command the police to stop teargassing people right now it’s too much we shall lose lives here in Kanyama. The teargassing is too much in houses where they are little children and pregnant women. Please ba President Lungu stop these police what they are doing is bad. I cant move out of my vehicle right now with my guys because teargas concentration outside is bad,” Mr Mwale posted on his Facebook page.

By the time of publishing, the riots were still ravaging.

And opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema has called for calm among Kanyama residents.

In a statement, Mr Hichilema said “We have received information that traders who were displaced from the streets and resident in Kanyama have run out of patience and are protesting, demanding to get back their trading places so that they can continue earning a living.”

He added, “We fully understand the challenges that everyone is facing at this moment but we want to call for calm as together we identify lasting solutions to these challenges.”

Mr Hichilema has further called on every well meaning Zambian not to involve themselves in violent protests that would lead to death.

“May calm be restored in our country and we hope even those whose trading places have been declared prohibited throughout the country will not resort to violence but dialogue and identify lasting solutions. It is understood that people’s lives and livelihoods have been disturbed and its time the PF took this matter seriously. The solution to roadside trading is to designate an area for traders to conduct their business.”

Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning
Kanyama Riots this morning

108 COMMENTS

    • Mr. Lungu, please create the 500,000 jobs you promised, then the people won’t need to street vend.

      Chasing away street vendors without creating a solution or alternative is going to explode in Lungu’s face.
      I suspect he’s already getting ready to fly out of the country to attend George Weah’s inauguration.

    • More than half of that number has been employed already. Go check with ministry of labour and update yourself with latest info.

    • There is a GOVERNANCE PROBLEMS IN ZAMBIA. Lungu himself has acknowledged this. He said to his cabinet that ZAMBIANS might revolt against us. THE guys know they are doing things wrong and the people will realise that sooner or later. LUNGU is not the best Leader for ZAMBIA. He doesn’t have leadership qualities. He got in by chance and the flaws are beginning to show. I am sorry who know aspects about Leadership will know that Leaders qualities like A VISION, A PHILOSOPHY, CHARISMA, BELIEFS, INSPIRATIONAL,CONFIDENCE IN ARTICULATING THEIR PRINCIPLE, THEY ARE FIRM AND DECISIVE and more. Our Lungu HAS NON OF THESE and has spent the time since he was voted in under suspicious circumstances he has been fighting to be recognized. Real leaders are accepted by their people without trying had.

    • @[email protected] Yes the movie was a blockbuster in 1991 it was called “EXIT SUPER KEN WHO GOES WEST AND ENTER KAFUPI” by Zambia’s best Producer called MUMBA KAMPUMPA. Every Zambian watched it and my! we enjoyed it. We now need a musical of it at Lusaka play House.

    • Edgar Lungu used fire to try to destroy the lives of these poor people, when he set the city market alight. Now Kanyama is on fire!

    • I think scandalising snd reducing my good standing name is uncalled for.

      My precision in judging life, political landscape and general well being is unparalleled having proved time after time that I’m the best at what I do.

      Kanyama residents are behaving like people from the Copperbelt. Both are lowest of he ebb and are a disgrace. I wish nothing good for them.

      They have brought chaos and had overstayed their welcome. Most are from Zaire.

      I appeal for calm

      I hold a PhD

      Thanks

      BB2014,2016

  1. This was organised by a sadist HH only intelligent people can deduce this from the statement made by this privatisation crook who has hidden the loot in the paradise papers…

    • A sign of failure where does HH come in just because he is calling for calm, let us grow up. We have accused him of burning the markets now we are it is him organising the riots. Let the PF organise a counter-riot so that we can have the police pulled from the scene. Let stop looking at everything with a carder lens…

    • Don’t blame HH for your mistakes.Take the blame instead.pf you always find it easy to blame HH for their failures.Are you going to spend the entire 5 years blaming HH? Your failures and success is entirely your own responsiblity.

    • this is not a matter of failure os success, the GRZ has also just been caught unaware by the cholera these same filthy kanyama residents brought upon the whole nation. ECL has done his very best under the circumstances and he deserves commendation.

      i think ECL should ignore detructors from the haters group of his well intended reaction to cholera, its not only kanyama residents who vote i also and will vote ECL FOR THIS WELL MANAGED FIGHT AGAINST CHOLERA

    • Lipkwa, do you know of any other way Zakeyo could have come to be? Please share with us the new science of being, if not by parents.

  2. Let us not encourage impunity; the reason the government has taken this move is to protect the very people of Kanyama who our of lack of sanitation (government squarely blamed) have contributed to the cholera outbreak. Everyone in Lusaka is feeling the impact, the schools are not likely to open soon, churches are banned, the unsanitary street trading has been banned which is very commendable and long overdue. They are economic costs not only to the people of Kanyama but the country as a whole. Reopening street trading is not going to help anyone and to me is a product of warped minds from the leadership to the led. Hence I encourage the people of Kanyama to calm down and the police not to spare anyone who will want to risk the lives of the rest of Zambians for selfish motives. Let the…

    • U are very dull my friend. Government has all the resources, they should have organised an alternative trading place for these people before kicking them from the streets. I was at that market yesterday. Almost all the vendors and soweto marketers have moved to John Lang market along Los Angels road next to Total filling station opposite lady Diana school. They come from different compounds withing Lusaka. Cholera or no cholera life has to continue, people need to sell in order to eat. Put yourself in their shoes. Remember this cholera out break won’t be contained till the end of the rainy season in April 2018. People can’t stay hungry till then so let the government quickly find a new place for our friends to prevent these riots.

    • @jj let’s not pretend like we don’t know the problem of street vending. All governments we have had have built markets which unfortunately your traders have shunned. I’ve mentioned Nakadoli in Kitwe. This market is a master piece but marketeers have shunned it in preference to Chisokone. Even when government has tried to move people from Chisokone in order that they can restructure it various interest groups have opposed the move. Groups include the opposition parties, market association, a group called AZIYA. .even the PF when it was in opposition supported the stand taken by these groups.

    • Who said government made a mistake to remove street vendors? You don’t seem to understand what am talking about. Noone wants vendors back on the streets. The riots in kanyama is not about vendors trying to return to the streets. Its a pity thats what your radio stations reported during 13 hrs news. Traders were protesting because they found the market where they had moved to since vacating Chinika school grounds sealed by police this morning. Their merchadise such as tomatoes, fish in fridges, kapenta, vinkubala etc were right inside the market meanwhile police was ordering them to return home saying the market was closed. That’s not how you treat poor people who survive on daily sales. I wonder if you have poor people in your family. Its more than two weeks since these guys were chased…

  3. As if the problems we are already have are not enough. What’s wrong with these people? Must be a very low IQ to think that revolt against Cholera will make life better for them.

    • Imagine what kind of thinking this is; greedy at its best. Want to kill the entire country just because you want to survive as an individual honestly we need to get some people check at the hills.

    • HH had prior knowledge of the riots even before they started. Just read ” we’ve heard” as if he’s not aware. I bet when arrests are made we will see that the majority of those arrested will have one common denominator other than being deprived of income.

  4. That’s the problem in Zambia…not willing to sacrifice a bit. You mean you want to continue operating in cholera generating environment? As for HH does he think that successive governments haven’t tried to improve trading facilities? Here in Kitwe there’s a market in Chimwemwe called Nakadoli but everyone wants to trade at Chisokone therefore leaving Nakadoli an empty white elephant. Even along the road from Kitwe to Ndola shelters have been built but traders prefer to operate in the open on the road.

    • @Ndanje Khakis
      The major problem we have is, lack of political WILL to enforce the law on TRADING. Go to any market, bus rank or street, cadres have allocated trading places to vendors, without approval from the Councils.
      Solution is simple – give the authority to plan and enforce the law on TRADING back to the rightful owners – THE COUNCILS. This has nothing to do with whichever political party one is affiliated to, it is for interest of all Zambian citizens. Imagine in the SADC region, apart from Zambia, which other country is experiencing Cholera? Its not rocket science, – they have controls on trading.

    • Ndanje Khakis ….. you are forgetting that the PF Govt allowed this to go on in exchange of votes. We should not blame the previous Govt because they are the one’s in power now and these are the issue’s they should have tackled upon being voted in office in order to score points rather than screaming we want recognition that Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu is president.
      Put policies in place like building good markets with proper sanitation and clean water and move the traders by force like what they are doing now. You can’t tell people to stop trading and offer no solution….these are people who have chosen to better themselves by doing the little they can do instead of going into theft and prostitution. Ladies and gentlemen before commenting can we put ourselves in their shoes, that is…

    • Muchimba all governments have had a hand in this unregulated trading. Don’t forget MMD even had a minister in charge of vendors. Yes PF also takes the blame because as an opposition they used the vendors by ” protecting” them from being evicted by government.

    • @ 6.3 Ndanje Khakis

      You say: “…all governments…,” well, they all have been headless dunderheads, lacking the capacity to think and reason. Sad that more than fifty years after independence, we are still below ground zero.

  5. This is the time to hold firm and not curve in. HH should not even try to sacrifice the health of the nation on the alter of Street vendors votes. We are were we are today because of such silly opportunism by our power hungry and shallow minded politicians. There are better ways to get to State House. Street vending empathy is not THE ONLY WAY. Order needs to be restored and all right thinking people of Zambia should stand together on this one

    • I bet my last 50ngwee these are Upnd members. Just wait for the arrests. HH has welcomed the cholera as a blessing in disguise.

    • I sense a strong presence of dullness, !diocy and extreme shallowness pano pa side. HH told your unbelievably dull Lungu way back in September to put up measures to curb the looming cholera epidemic so I do not know what you three geniuses are blabbering about. Hold that excuse of a president accountable and leave an opposition leader alone you twits.

  6. Foolish and outdated politics must not be entertained. This is the opportunity to reduce illegal street vending. When deaths occur, the same opportunists will start blaming government. For them, anything negative is an opportunity to get what they want. We judge them by their actions!

  7. A serpent will always have double tongue split even as he moves stealthily through Kanyama at night. HH is a danger to Zambia and must be declared as such.

    • Should this traced to him, he must be sent to Chilubi island where it’ll be impossible for Mrs Scotland to reach.

    • Remember that cholera started way back, you allowed a huge gathering amidst cholera on the 18th of October at show grounds, while upnd took heed of health warnings from health experts and postponed their rally in kanyama.

    • Bakoswe you were warned way back in September about Cholera.You did not heed the timely advice. Your mayor was asleep and your Local govt minister also confessed that they had gone to sleep.Are you going to blame HH now.Is he the one who sedated you?
      You burnt the markets to justify your corrupt purchasing of the wheelbarrow fire trucks.Who did you blame HH? You love him because you admire his wealth and intelligence.
      You went to sleep because you don’t have a vision.You rigged the elections.Let’s see now if you are going to rig the solution for cholera and job creation.

    • Mr Ndanje Khakis, or whatever you are, please keep Chilubi District out your brainless cadre politics. Why don’t you send HH or who ever you hate to your mother’s shit..hole. Chilubi people are not part of your *****ic fight. By the way, why would the Commonwealth not be able to reach chilubi? How does the MP get there and if not, why hasn’t your President developed it. KEEP CHILUBI OUT OF YOUR *****IC POLITICS.

  8. How stiupid and pathetic these Kanyama low lifes. They would rather live among feeces and flies. Filthy thugs.
    Evil man (HH) has a hand in this.

    Yours truly
    Mr & Mrs Armageddon

    • Mutobe ilibwe, nyamula mwala mushombe. Thou casteth thy boulder before you thinketh brother, remove thy humongous speck from thy eyes. Because truthfully thy land needth calm heads.

    • kudos! you are very dull. you ought to be ashamed of yourself for blaming an innocent man instead of your dull directionless childish play boy.

  9. Kangombe in Kitwe, he started removing the vendors en cleaned the town center, but the carders rose against him, even EL supported them! now they are not just losing business but lives as well thru cholera!

  10. This is a clear test of this PF leadership. If they should curve in, they will be allowing for cholera to rampage. We are paying the price for allowing street vending; this a fish Sata cooked for PF when he expressly sanctioned street vending and went on to influence legislating for vending in parliament. This a populist, myopic and bad piece of law that must be repealed. It compromises order and sanitation that have led to filth and unhygienic conditions in which Cholera has festered.

  11. Mutobe ilibwe, nyamula mwala mushombe, pf cadres always cast the first stone at HH even before they eat their breakfast, that is if they can manage 3 meals a day.

  12. Yes I equally believe the rioters have one common denominator and not of street vending but a political party. Ukwebele imfwa ya noko e wumwipeye. As usual someone shall take advantage of the situation to advance his political standing by claiming he shall provide jobs if put into State House.

  13. Why didn’t government allow Cholera to just wipe out the whole of these people in Kanyama who are creating too much dirty in the city. A normal person would not wish to make the city as dirty as it was. Don’t talk of jobs because I have relatives who have no jobs and are farming in the village instead of shitting in shakeshake cases in town.

    • Come on! Grow up. You are an ignorant tribal bigot. Please embrace every ethnic group. If you do not want other ethnic groups, go to your own plane where there are only people from your group.

  14. THINK BEFORE YOU COMMENT, NOT ANYTHING HH, PWIII ATI HH BOOOO ATI HH . HE IS JUST A SIMPLE COUNTRY MAN LIKE ALL OF YOU. IF YOU FEEL THAT HH IS NOT YOUR TYPE, TALK MORE ABOUT MULYOKELA OR THE OTHER ONE WHO HAS FAILED THE NATION BY ALLOWING CHOLERA TO SWALLOW OUR PEOPLES LIVES.

  15. Open UNZA we want to join the RIOTS and teach KANYAMA pipo how to dodge TEARGAS, NOT what i see here is amature way of avoiding effects of TEARGAS, muzanya

  16. Serpent HH ‘in a statement’ meaning that the satahist has not even gone there to console the community. Anyway, what do u expect from serpent HH

    • Don’t blame HH for your mistakes.Take the blame instead.pf you always find it easy to blame HH for their failures.Are you going to spend the entire 5 years blaming HH? Your failures and success is entirely your own responsiblity.

    • @Katana I can assure you that right now HH and his entire National Management Team are in a meeting shaking each others hands on how cholera has handed them a golden opportunity.

    • @ Ndanje Khakis Whoever has succeeded in life is because they exploited the opportunity which feel in their path. Evil as it may sound, if cholera epidemic is an opportunity for UPND, so shall it be. That is just how life is. It is never fair. One man’s poison is another man’s cup of tea.

  17. this comboni is full of a know tribe.

    all compounds have complied.

    whats wrong with tribe.

    they are ones that bring dirty

  18. HH is not clever. You can’t do politics over cholera. What do these people in Kanyama sell? I would expected proprietors for viable businesses to complain because they are losing millions of Kwacha everyday. But They have kept quiet because they understand the gravity of this matter.

    What do these Kanyama residents sell? Sex, rotten mushroom, rotten Masuku?

    Sad for Zambia.

  19. A riot has broken out and rightly or wrongly, the underlying reasons are there for any intelligent being to discern. Yet, some uncouth bloggers immediately point the finger at HH. For how long are you going to be so perverse and down right backward? After the clearing of the vendors, dialogue and discussion on alternatives should have been on going. In any case, real solutions to street vending should have been sought years ago. You can’t provide jobs because you have no manufacturing or industrial base, so you allow people to freely be vendors anywhere (albeit for populist votes as well), you don’t in the meantime work on alternatives, the environment and sanitation – cholera comes in, you ban vending, people lose their livelihood and you don’t have the foresight to expect some form…

    • @ 28 Harold Muna

      I agree. It is a governance issue. PF are delinquent and incompetent. They are failing to manage the crisis.

  20. Chris Musonda Pastor added 2 new photos.
    12 mins ·
    Appeal to our Republican President of this great nation, His Excellency Mr E. C. LUNGU and Great Leader of the main opposition party Mr. H. HICHILEMA, I greet you in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. my appeal to both of you great Leaders of Zambia is that please reconcile, please the two of you should consider to meet with each other and sort out the differences you have as family and as godly Leaders, Your Continued non commitment to meaningful dialogue is affecting many Citizens in this country, check how hateful some people have become in this nation, the Lord does not forgive us if we do not forgive others. I remember when the two late Presidents of this Nation His Excellency Mr. Mwanawasa and His Excellency Mr. Sata ,( may their…

  21. Bafilopaule fye.Ukukwine ekufuma na cholera. There has to be order and sanity in a country that is trying hard to prevent deaths. The same people will be singing ‘boma iyanganepo’ when people continue dying from cholera.

  22. The level of dullness on this forum is amazing! Its shocking that people who are literate and can go online can show this level of dullness. Have you read what HH said? He asked people to be patient as government finds alternative trading place and asked the government to speed up the process.

    Street vendors survive on daily income as such this has seriously hit them. For those of us in employment imagine not being paid for a month or two. Cholera has paralysed us but we need to find ways of providing support than insulting innocent citizens

  23. We are a very dirty people. Apart from the government negligence, we as citizens should also share the responsibility. For example how do people sheet in shake shake containers and through them in the drainage? The government now and in the past have tried to give us drainage. What do we do with them? Through litre there ( shake shake packs with amafi inside). In fact we need soldiers to patrol our town and teach us the hard way on how to maintain cleanliness. The other day I was checking at drainages in Kaunda Square, they were full of plastics and other dirty things thrown there. What type of people are we sure?

  24. Even those in the opposition should not support dirtiness because when chance comes to rule the country you will find it very hard to rule in a dirty nation. So please don’t support this. But of course after removing the street vendors the government should have found an alternative. You cannot declare a curfew and lock people in their houses and expect them to survive.

  25. But why lock people in houses. Just because of cholera. Does cholera know timing and when to strike.
    Proper political milage from U5. Faka speed.
    So when these PF were promoting street vending they thought they were cool. Ati street vendors desk at state house. Marubbish!
    Disaster!

  26. Friends I for one many times find Adolf and his thought pattern at tandem with progress. However, please don’t blame him for the cholera nor indeed the riots. True, we all wish he had exhibited this type of leadership at the turn of last elections and now he has done the right thing ‘called for calm’. Violence has never been an answer because he who has the most force uses it. Burning tyres leads to an increase in pollution and burning trucks that helped collect cabbage is sad. Let us engage in dialogue, identify where people can trade from temporarily except they are not going on to the streets that must never be allowed. Lets come up with solutions together as a good people that we are and have always been. God bless zambia

    • Just like people are now using fists to greet each other, a sign of mwa cholera, were there is sanity and proper sanitation, people should greet each other normally.

  27. Let them be on the street and die. Prepare mass graves. They don’t appreciate because most of them are fools. Residential areas, I believe , are not affected. Only people with pit latrines are victims. Retards always think about politics. Lungu has failed etc. Your health matters and it is not entirely Lungu or PF who is responsible for your filthy lifestyle and environment.Learn to sell in designated places like markets. Use those bins. Follow health warnings and pieces of advice.Do you want to stay alive …James Hardley Chase.

  28. I have seen it….. experienced it… it’s so sad that we are treated like flies…
    Beaten for no crime….
    Ati zambia is a peaceful nation….
    Mr lungu… you shud realise that 90% of zambians are simple traders,poor and majority of us earn a living via street vending… these shops that you see are owned by foreigners… think about it…
    Dont b dull mr president

  29. Ndanje you as PF what is your plan or vision for these vendors. You capitalized on them for votes now take care of their problems. It’s very shameful bragging about winning elections only to be failures once voted in. You can’t continue fooling people like this

    • These vendors shun beautiful markets in preference to streets. Just come to Zambia I will show these markets which have remained empty. By the way I am not PF.

  30. Ndanje Khakis….. It is the PF Govt which is in power today and not MMD, UNIP or Ba Sata (May his soul rest in peace). N way let us stop crying over spilt milk and forge ahead. I recommend the PF Govt for doing what they should have done upon taking office and in the near future people should take responsibility for such , meaning people should be fired over such issues. Have a good day my brother, ine chilankalipa especially when I see how people in the UK always make their ministers accountable and to see how things are done …. I start thinking Zambians are good and loving people but why? I want to come back home but I am scared would not want to be another Clive Chirwa.

  31. Its a pity you people are blaming poor marketeers for the cholera out breaks when its the true culprit here is the government it self. This problem stared during the early days of the MMD government. Its Chiluba who allowed vendors on our streets. The man even went further by creating vendors desk at state house. Mwanawasa tried to clean our streets but his efforts fell off. During the first term of the PF, Madam Kadu Luo, then Minister of Local Government almost did something about it but president Sata played politics of appeasement by stopped stop her. He even demoted her to a Minister of witches. I guess he thought the vendors would go for his throat in the next general elections. The government should just buy off houses in compounds to create spaces for construction of bigger modern…

  32. Street vendors must be removed from the streets country wide. This will create a situation where no political party will use street vending to gain votes in 2021. PF are in power now and must not be afraid to do this because even UPND will not have that privilege. In fact PF stands a better chance because then traders will be in designated market places and will be glad PF did what they are doing now.

  33. Street vending has always been their source of livelihood. Give them jobs, food and water. It is the reason we have a government – to solve problems of this nature.

  34. I wanted to commend Akainde for what sound like wise words. But on second thoughts I realise that he is as sly as they come. Remember last week he claimed that he had been stopped from visiting “our people to see how they are surviving after being forced from the street vending without being given alternative source of livelihood”. I am almost certain they expected the riots to be uncontrollable. Another evil “strategy” stopped dead..
    Meantime please clean up mukobeko and chimbokaila, we need a clean environment for our guests.

  35. HH has been always want to take advantage of incidents like this ones were pipo are dying just why ?hh must be termed to a level were he will understand the reality of life

  36. Just quarantine Kanyama, let them stay inside a fence where they can continue trading. Those who want to go must apply for visa and must be thoroughly screened for cholera.

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