MANKAYANE (9 May 2025): Police and Fire and Emergency divers are now scouring the Lusutfu River in search of a man swept off the back of a bakkie that was swept off the Ngwempisi River this week.
The man is the 28th to drown in the country’s rivers since January, fuelling growing alarm at the trend in deaths even in winter.
Fire and Emergency spokesman Mandla Dlamini says divers yesterday started their search at Sigcineni at the confluence of the Ngwempisi and the Lusutfu, almost 40 kilometres downstream from the spot of the accident.
The drowned man was part of party of three that attempted to cross the flooded river and were unfortunately swept off. While the other two people were rescued, the third man was swept away.
In the past week, emergency service divers recovered the body of a child. “It is very sad to lose a young person whose future is cut short like this,” said Dlamini.
The child who has not been identified, is part of a number of people who have disappeared in the Mankayane area and are believed to have drowned in the Ngwempisi river.
“Its frightening. Up to now 28 people have already drowned,” he told the official Eswatini Radio yesterday morning.
“We are concerned because people normally drown when rivers are flooded during the summer rains. But we see the drownings continue even as we are now in winter. We must continue to warn people to treat all rivers with caution. People should be particularly careful of the main national rivers that traverse the country from West to East such as the Mkhondvo, Lusushwana, Lusutfu and the Ngwempisi.”
All Eswatini’s main rivers flow from the South Africa highveld through the Kingdom to the Indian Ocean on the Mozambique coast. Probably related to ongoing activity by the so called Water Mafias in South Africa. Dlamini said while winter rains continue to be a source of concern, in recent weeks rivers have been swelled unexpectedly.
It is suspected that this might be related to the work of ‘Water Mafias’ who sabotage water infrastructure in order to profit from selling water from tankers, a tendency that is now common in neighbouring South Africa, and might explain the irregular water increases in Eswatini Rivers come without warning. Ordinarily, South African water authorities issue alerts to communities downstream of dams of the potential danger before they open dam sluices during to prevent overfilling. The emergency services have however not received any communication of anticipated rise in river flows and Dlamini did not suspect that other agencies related to river water had received such warnings and failed to share the alerts.
“We warn people who live near major rivers to be careful of the water even when it has not rained. People must watch the flow of the river, the quality of the water and its colour as these may be indicators of increased water levels sometimes associated with release of water from dams up-river.”
“We are concerned that people should not cross rivers carelessly. Parents especially should make sure they monitor how their children cross rivers and their safety. Everyone must take responsibility to make sure that river crossings are safe. Even people who sell alcohol should be responsible. They must make sure to accommodate their customers and not allow them to leave if they are going to cross rivers yet they are not sober, especially at night because this has proven to be dangerous.”
Flood water is even more dangerous in the lowveld where the rivers are swelled by incoming tributaries and carry a lot of force after it rains in the highveld.
The divers, Dlamini said, are working under very tiresome condition in the water as they have to search every corner in the river and its banks.
Jm/today/9.05.2025, revised 10.5.2025 to update water mafias.
