Kavango East Region has so far recorded 15 mortalities due to malnutrition.

This was shared during an engagement meeting between the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Gender Equality Social Development and Family Affairs, the Health Directorate, and stakeholders at Rundu. 

The malnutrition cases in the Kavango East Region were at their peak last year, with 2,716 people affected and 30 deaths recorded.

This year, 15 mortalities were recorded, with about 14,000 people affected by malnutrition. 

The Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication, and Social Welfare has called for collective action among lawmakers, government agencies, and the community to tackle hunger and avoid preventable deaths. 

The call was in response to NUDO MP Joseph Kauandenge's questions about the cause of the deaths of 16 family members at Kayova in Kavango East last year.

Swapo Secretary General, Sophia Shaningwa, is urging the community of Mashare in Kavango East to register for the November elections.

Shaningwa spoke at a mini rally in Rundjarara Village over the weekend.

"The people of Mashare, Kavango East, the people who have been loyal to Swapo Party since independence. The Kavango people. I don't need to lecture you because you know what needs to be done. You have been doing that since independence. I am not seeing many opposition parties here because you are dedicated to the Swapo Party."

The Home Affairs office at Rundu is inundated with stateless and undocumented persons who turned up for the mass registration process over the past few weeks. 

Stateless and undocumented people of all ages have been flooding the home affairs building in the hopes of getting registered and possibly qualifying for Namibian social grants. 

That is the word on the street, but the Deputy Director of Civil Registration in the northeast, Fillemon Shipena, says they have been misinformed. 

A delegation comprising Japanese Ambassador Hisao Nishimaki, UN Resident Coordinator Hopolang Phororo, and UNICEF Country Representative Sam Ocran visited the Rundu Intermediary Hospital in the Kavango East Region recently.
 
The visit was part of an impact assessment of Japanese assistance to the Kavango East health sector.
 
The Kavango East Region's population of close to 220,000 is served by 31 health facilities, 28 health centres and clinics, two district hospitals, and the Rundu Intermediate Referral Hospital. 

Japan has, to date, dispatched more than 100 teachers across different schools, while the construction of additional classrooms in Namibia continues.

Funded through Japan's "Grant Assistance for Grassroots Projects' programme, Namibia has been a beneficiary of school buildings and around 300 classrooms since 1997.

Japan's Ambassador to Namibia provided an update on this and other matters of mutual concern between the two countries to President Nangolo Mbumba at State House.

Four minors from Livaye Village in Kavango East who died from suspected food poisoning were buried in a mass grave over the weekend.

Eight children initially ate the food, of whom four died and the others survived, while the remaining four were discharged.

The incident happened on February 26.

According to family members, a 13-year-old boy had prepared a lunch of porridge and mutete, which the children consumed.

Another meal of porridge and soup was prepared by an older relative for supper, which the minors also consumed.

Employees of Kayova Lodge and the community in Kavango East are demanding the removal of the lodge's manager.

They claim that the management has diverted from the project's initial plan, from which the community was due to benefit.

The lodge was established for the development and upliftment of the community.

The target was the implementation of a kindergarten, a water project, and orphanages.

The project was founded by the late Catholic father Klaus Denner from Germany in 2003.

The Rundu Rural Constituency councillor says that despite various studies revealing that Kavango East is one of the poorest regions, the central government has not done enough to turn the tide. 

Paulus Mbangu was addressing the Minister of Mines and Energy during an engagement with the Kavango East Regional Council. 

According to Mbangu, four income and expenditure surveys were carried out between 1993 and 2014, and they all established that the Kavango regions were the poorest. 

An agricultural census in 1995 and 2005 had the same result.

The leader of the Landless People's Movement, Bernadus Swartbooi, says Rundu is in a deplorable state. 

During a media conference, the party leadership raised a number of concerns, mainly related to the town's infrastructure and land.