CBU RIOTS, LOOT SHOPS, DESTROY PROPERTY
Some students at the Copperbelt University Main Campus in Kitwe in the late hours of yesterday rioted and looted, among others, COBUSU shops within the campus due to a water interruption.
Sanfrossa Manyinda Mberi reports that the students who ran amok around 23:00 got away with mostly food items and other groceries from the shops as one of their ways to vent their anger for not having running water for almost 48 hours at the campus.
Earlier, before the riots erupted, COBUSU Interim President Edgar Chiingu communicated to the student populace that the water interruption was the result of an inoperative 3.3 kV transformer that powers the five pumps at the Bulangililo Water Treatment Plant, at least as advised by Nkana Water and Sewerage Company (NWSC).
And NWSC Public Relations Manager Bivan Saluseki said the firm is working with ZESCO and is currently in the process of installing the replacement, and water should be restored soon enough.
But as a way of trying to manage the problem, three water bowsers, two of which supplied water to the students on campus and the other which supplied the lecturers and the students residing near the lecturers’s compound, were organised.
Meanwhile, despite being advised to draw water from the bowsers on campus as the issue was being looked into, the students rioted as they complained that the solution offered was not enough.
Mr. Saluseki said the works at the Bulangililo Water Treatment Plant, which have affected water supply to the north of Kitwe, are still in progress.
He said affected areas include Kamatipa, Racecourse Garneton, Riverside, Parklands, Bulangililo, Kwacha East, East of Kwacha, Old Kwacha, Chimwemwe, Kawama, Mindolo North & West, Industrial Area, Buyantanshi, Kamitondo, and Buchi Townships.
