Rehabilitation of Lamington

Evacuees Ilimo Camp Now Closed

THE Ilimo evacuee camp was closed at the end of May when the last of the Mt. Lamington evacuees moved out to newly-constructed villages along the Wasita-Awala Road.

The villages are “permanent-tempor ary” settlements, and the evacuees them selves do not regard the villages as permanent since they naturally wish to return to their own tribal lands. But the deciding factor will be the Lamington volcano. If it settles down, in time the natives will undoubtedly return to their old areas.

The transfer of all evacuees —somewhere around 8,000 all told—to new vil lages within four months is an excellent achievement on the part of the District Services Department. Anybody who knows natives, does not need to be told their thousand-and-one objections to settling in even “kinship” territory, nor the long story of enthusing the young and active men to the job of clearing new areas for homes and gardens. But they have been won into accepting temporary substitute lands, and are in fair way to becoming self-supporting again. Government rations are still needed, as the first gar dens are not yet yielding enough for their requirements, but a start has been made, and the £4,000-a-week food bill will be steadily reduced from now on.

The Health authorities merit a good stint of praise, too, for there have been no epidemics among the thousands of evacuees who had to be crowded into closely packed camps after the main evacuation from Mt. Lamington.

It took a lot of supervision to enforce essential precautions but the result has been a clean bill of health and the general well-being of the evacuees.