Call on Lithuania to release Zim fire trucks

Herald Reporter

MORE than 50 fire incidences have been recorded so far, killing people, burning over 44 000 hectares of vegetation, houses and granaries that had the little grain salvaged from the last summer cropping season.

Zimbabwe has been experiencing a surge in veld fires and associated losses outside the stipulated statutory period mainly due to seasonal shifts associated with climate change, Environmental Management Authority (EMA) education and publicity manager, Ms Amkela Sidange, said recently.

She encouraged people to be “alert all the time and prevent veld fires before we lose more lives, property and priceless environmental goods and services”.

The fire season started on July 1 and runs until November 30.

Zimbabwe and some SADC countries experienced low to below normal rains last season, which has made the grass a lot drier and highly flammable. This comes as the country is still to get its 17 modern fire trucks being held in Lithuania.

Zimbabwe sourced fire trucks from Belarus last year, but as they were being shipped to Zimbabwe, 17 of them were seized by Lithuania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

NATO member countries and some European countries imposed illegal sanctions on Russia after it launched a special military operation that is ongoing in Ukraine.

Since Belarus is a close ally of Russia, Lithuania found it convenient to seize the fire trucks destined for Zimbabwe as part of measures to punish both Moscow and Minsk.

In the absence of those fire trucks, Zimbabwe is struggling to swiftly put out veld fires, resulting in swathes of forests, houses and wildlife being affected.

RELATED STORIES

The Department of Civil Protection (DCP) has confirmed the increase in fire-related incidences from the start of the year to date.

In a recent interview, DCP executive director Mr Nathan Nkomo called on the international community not to politicise issues where people’ lives were at stake.

“The world should learn to separate issues; where there is a need for humanitarian support, the issues of sanctions must fall by the wayside and let people be saved from issues that threaten their well-being,” said Mr Nkomo.

“At the moment we have a situation where the country is struggling to control fire outbreaks because it does not have adequate fire trucks because some are held in Lithuania.”

Sometime in February this year, Attorney General Mrs Virginia Mabiza led a delegation to Lithuania to engage her counterpart over 17 fire tenders belonging to Zimbabwe that were impounded there en-route to Harare following a misunderstanding over their origin.