The Commissioner for Refugees, General Ignacio Maulana (retired), says plans to move Dzaleka Refugee Camp to Kailizi in Chitipa District are at an advanced stage.
He made the remarks during a Dzaleka Camp Stakeholders’ Coordination Meeting at Forty Four Hotel in Area 44, Lilongwe, and later in an interview with Yetu Community Radio.
Maulana said the Department of Refugees will, within the next two weeks, tell organisations when they can begin construction at the new site. Compensation of landowners in Kailizi is still underway.
With immediate effect, the department has stopped construction of new institutional infrastructure in Dzaleka, including schools, offices and hospitals. The aim, he said, is to keep the relocation process orderly.
“There is no land available for institutions to construct facilities in Dzaleka. Therefore, any institution intending to build schools, offices or other facilities should come to our office, where we will allocate land for them at Kailizi,” Maulana said.
Construction of houses for refugee households in Dzaleka will continue. Boreholes have already been drilled at the Kailizi site as part of site preparation.
Once remaining processes at Kailizi are complete, new arrivals are expected to go directly to the new settlement rather than to Dzaleka.
The move is intended to ease congestion at Dzaleka, which currently hosts more than 60,000 refugees and asylum seekers. The proposed Kailizi site covers about 445 hectares — more than twice the size of the current camp. The location is also commonly referred to as Kayilizi.
