Residents of Nepara Village in Kavango West are calling for urgent action against an illegal settler. The settler's expanding herd of cattle has reportedly been destroying their crops for years. Despite court-issued eviction orders, the individual remains on the land, prompting the community to demand a resolution by the end of this month.

Residents of Nepara Village in the Mpungu Constituency are in a long-standing dispute with an illegal settler who brought cattle from Opuwo in the Kunene Region in 2019.

His herds of cattle have since grown to over 100, and the two herders can no longer control them.

Despite repeated eviction requests, the settler has allegedly refused to leave, and residents are frustrated as their fields are destroyed year after year.

Almost every communal farmer has been affected, raising fears about whether they will have any harvest at all.

The settler is also being accused of being unwilling to compensate those affected.

In one incident last year, he allegedly beat a villager and threatened to shoot people after being stopped from fencing off land.

Residents said they have reported the matter to traditional leaders, the police, and former Kavango West Governor Sirkka Ausiku, but no solution has been found.

The village headman Leo Hausiku said he is in doubt about his harvest despite the good rainfall received this year.

Some residents are accusing a prominent local figure of secretly allowing outside cattle farmers to settle in the area, raising doubts about a resolution.

Attempts to reach the cattle owner were unsuccessful.

The community has now written a letter to the regional governor, regional council, traditional authority, police and communal land board to intervene.

They demand urgent action and insist the settler must leave by the end of May.