The City of Windhoek has refuted claims of relocating some residents to an area where the |Khomanin Traditional Authority claimed to have several gravesites.

The Authority visited a once-forgotten grave site last week in the Moses ||Gäroeb Constituency.

The grave is that of Ouma Amalia |Hones, who died in 1963.

The |Khomanin Traditional Authority says that |Hones is of royal descent; her grave was discovered in 2020 by city officials during a relocation process before they moved residents from the Havana Four-Way.

Residents were relocated to this area due to the construction of a road that would lead to the Ongos Residential Village.

Chiefs forming part of the Traditional Authority claimed that, apart from |Hones' grave, there were other graves in the area, but that they were just not visible due to forces of nature.

A bar, they said, is one of those structures that is constructed on an area where graves were.

But a spokesperson at the City of Windhoek, Lydia Amutenya, disagrees, saying the municipality has done an environmental impact assessment before the relocation of the residents.

"In the surrounding area, there is no visible grave or nothing that the City officials would see, but even after the Environmental Impact Assessment was done, no other information came forth that there are other graves in the area to validate the claim that there are more graves in the area, so from our position and from the information at our disposal, there is only one unmarked grave of the late Ouma, and that is why the city has fenced off the grave."

The |Khomanin Traditional Authority met last week with Stefanus Ndengu, the councilor of Moses ||Gäroeb Constituency, in which they requested the City of Windhoek erect a monument for |Hones.

The city says it cannot commit to the construction of a monument at the moment.

"We can't commit at the moment to saying that the City will do it or not do it. I think that is also a request that is being made through a discussion that took place on a different platform. They can reach out formally to request and hear what the City Council would have to say on the matter, but at the moment we are not in any position to confirm or to commit."