Floods bring out worst in squatter settlement
It’s not uncommon during the rainy season for us to run a story on flooding in Belize City, usually in the Belama Phase Three area. Today is no different except that we’ve shifted focus slightly to the developing neighbourhood of Belama Four. The problems I discovered there are more serious than high water.
Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
It is a rapidly growing community in the Belama area where approximately fifty families reside. The problem is these residents have illegally moved onto government swamp land to build. Because the swampy area is below sea level the families have had to construct London bridges to have access to their homes. But according to residents, the bad situation is being made worse by a nearby reclamation project.
Carlos Zetina, Resident/Taxi driver
?Recently, they start to dredge the sea to full this area and the water that they are pumping from the sea is contributing to the rise of the water, and with the weather it actually makes it worse. You cannot get a taxi to come back here. I have to come because I live back here but you would never get a taxi service would never pass the water you know. All the streams, all the canals are infested with crocodiles. Recently you had a crocodile coming out and eating the dogs so it?s very, very dangerous, especially since the kids play in the water.?
?Some people are illegal like on this side, people are illegal but on this side the people, most of them are legal right. So it is not only illegal people that are getting affected it is the whole community. Because if you go down like behind Benny?s Apartments that whole area is flood out right now.?
W and S Engineering Limited responsible for the dredging say it?s not their fault but the people who have decided to illegally reside on land to be developed for residential purposes.
Bill Lindo, Owner, W & S Engineering limited
?The problem is the weather. Right now between October and the end of November the water is usually about eighteen and two feet higher than normal. After November it will go down. As far as dredging, the dredging is not creating any problems because we put in a drain about twelve feet wide by six feet deep and more than a thousand feet to the Haulover Creek.?
Lindo says G.O.B. contracted his company to develop three hundred filled lots by December but the squatters have been making things difficult as, despite numerous warnings, they refuse to move.
Bill Lindo
?It will be Belama Phase Four and the government hopes that by the end of this year, by early January three hundred house lots will be available for the people. It will be filled at least three feet above normal. It will be filled to that level.?
Jacqueline Godwin
?What will become of the structures already out there??
Bill Lindo
?Well that I cannot answer but I guess they will have to move or fix because they are creating a slum back there. You don?t need a slum on north side that?s my view. The Ministry of Land told me that they have given them four notices but they refuse or they pretend that they do not understand.?
How long the families will remain in the area is anybody?s guess but Lindo says the only thing that will cause his work to delay is the weather and not the trespassers.
Bill Lindo
?It has made it more difficult but it hasn?t stopped it because they put things in the way. And what they have done is: first we build walls to keep the water away from them and they move the materials from the wall because they say it?s for them, so it?s very difficult but it is life. My deadline is the end of December so I will finish because if I don?t finish it will cost money.?
In the meantime, if weather permits, W and S will also be improving conditions on the main road that leads into Belama phase four that is presently underwater. Lindo says they will be raising the roadway some eighteen to twenty inches.
News Five understands that those families who have constructed bigger buildings will be given the option to remain.
