A forgotten enemy rears its ugly head

Mbongeni Mguni - Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday June 1, 2026 06:00

 

MOKATAKO: Seosenyeng Moraladi says that in his 74 years spent living in the border village, he has never seen Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). His parents never mentioned the disease during their years. “We had never heard of it nor seen it,” he told Mmegi on Tuesday. “Lately, we’ve been hearing about it from other countries, and we were told it was in South Africa. “Here, we still don’t have it. “We don’t even know what it looks like, except for what the veterinary officers showed us in education documents.” Standing next to the new cordon fence, a few metres from the border line, Moraladi contained his emotions as he spoke about the despair that had befallen the community since the April 2 shock announcement of FMD detection at the Ramatlabama National Artificial Insemination Laboratory (NAIL).

Throughout the southern districts, communal cattle are in obviously prime condition, having benefited immensely from the healthy summer rains. Their glistening coats belie a disease that is stalking the area. Where cattle farmers expected to reap handsome rewards from the rains, disaster has struck. Mokatako in the Good Hope District lies on the long-running border with South Africa, marked by the Molopo River, which forms a natural boundary between the two countries for hundreds of kilometres in the east and south. Many communities in the village live a stone’s throw from settlements in South Africa and share strong familial ties. Mokatako is located in Zone 11, the country’s second-largest disease control zone, approximately 85,000 to 95,000 square kilometres in size, comparable to the country of Portugal. While FMD has struck most of the country’s 22 disease control zones at one time or another since the beginning of the year, Zone 11 is the current epicentre of a virus outbreak best described as a wrecking ball for the rural economy.

The zone sprawls across several districts and is traditionally the country’s most economically important for beef and small stock, has carried FMD-free status for decades, and hosts the main Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) abattoir at Lobatse. In Mokatako, at least 3,000 cattle have received second doses, a strictly preventive measure, as FMD has not been detected in the village despite its proximity to the border. Throughout the zone, 16,729 cattle or about 82 percent of the target, had been vaccinated by May 21. The virus was first detected at the secure NAIL facility in Ramatlabama and later spread to crushes in the area. It also popped up more recently in the Banyana Farms area, another largely restricted area. Since then, it has been picked in other areas deeper into the southern parts of the zone. Speculation, rumours and allegations are flying throughout the south, particularly after Acting Agriculture Minister Edwin Dikoloti publicly said that extortion attempts had been made before the initial Ramatlabama outbreak was discovered. Ministry officials have since backed away from suggestions of sabotage and are more focused on responding to the spread of the disease.

“We are investigating to follow the disease and see how far it has spread in the country, and so far in our investigations, we found it in a few places like the Good Hope area,” Veterinary Services director, Dr Kobedi Segale, told a meeting on May 19. “The major thing we have seen is that with the movement of people, when they travel into and out of South Africa, interacting with others and animals, there is a high chance of bringing it back this side. “We have the dips at the borders and along routes, but there are people who use unregulated crossings.” Since Segale’s briefing, FMD has turned up in more areas in Zone 11. One of these, however, is not Mokatako, where Mokatako-Molete Kgosi Omphitlhetse Manyeneng expressed villagers’ frustrations. “Mokatako’s livelihood is based strongly on cattle, goats and others, and once the warning was sounded, we held our meetings to prepare. “Our mophato began working very hard along the border, making sure livestock doesn’t go anywhere near, patrolling throughout the day and night. “Even today, not one animal has been killed in Mokatako for straying near the border. “The mophato members are patrolling around the clock, making sure there’s no vandalism of the fence, but there was no support for them at all for a long time.

“The Council finally asked for some to be placed under Ipelegeng remuneration, but it’s also rotational.” The key frustration is that by being part of a huge zone, areas that have sacrificed to patrol and guard with little or no financial support are paying the same price as the rest of Zone 11 in terms of restrictions on slaughter and animal movement. With the Department of Veterinary Services and support services such as the police and the Botswana Defence Force stretched thin across the vast zone, mephato at the village level have taken the front line not only in defending the border but also in marshalling farmers to participate in activities such as vaccination. In Mokatako, the community’s despair is worsened by a unique set of circumstances. The erection of a P65 million veterinary or cordon fence as a “red zone” against FMD in December 2024 reportedly proceeded without villagers’ input. Community members say the fence blocked their access to the Molopo River and other small dams, as well as ancestral sites, including key traditional herbs used by villagers. Critically, livestock continue to be attracted to the traditional water sources that now lie out of reach, placing a greater burden on mephato to keep them away from the red zone.

Any livestock caught in the red zone, the area between the cordon and the border fence, is destroyed. In Leporung, Othusitse Tsamaesi had his 20 cattle, built up into a herd over a lifetime, confiscated and shot after one of them wandered into the red zone between the fences. The communal farmer recovered a cow and returned it to the herd, unaware that FMD protocols dictate destruction. Elsewhere in the same village, Thuso Bapalami, a female breadwinner and communal farmer, had 11 of her goats destroyed after a similar incident. While she vigilantly herded her small stock away from the border fence, which lies less than 50 metres from her homestead, the goats strayed too far one day. Dikoloti, who is the resident Member of Parliament for much of Zone 11, including the hardest-hit areas, recently opened up about his own heartbreak at the FMD crisis.

After the country’s first outbreak this year was detected in February in the North-East, Ministry officials rushed to secure the economically critical southern border, strengthening fences, using drones for surveillance, and rallying vigilance amongst villagers. “In Zone 11, we have a 152-kilometre-long fence from Mabule to Tlhareseleele built at a cost of P65 million, as well as the Ramatlabama security fence, which cost P9.4 million, but FMD managed to find a way through,” he told a recent meeting. “Overnight, Botswana has lost access to the duty and quota-free, high-value European Union market.” Just like farmers who felt fortified in the south, without an outbreak for 50 years, Dikoloti described a personal sense of despair during the critical days between suspected cases and their confirmation in late March and early April.

“It started with the message I received on March 31 in the afternoon, which had accompanying pictures, and I looked at these before I went to the message. “The message said there were some bulls with suspected FMD cases at Ramatlabama. “I could not sleep, and I was engaging my Permanent Secretary throughout, and he was trying to calm me down, saying, ’ Let’s wait for the results’. “Ramatlabama is my constituency, and the facility has a biological asset worth around P250 million. “I went to the Cabinet on Wednesday wearing a mask because the worry had lowered my immune system. “Late on Wednesday afternoon, the PS sent a message that it’s no longer a suspected case but a confirmed case in Ramatlabama.” Restrictions on the movement and slaughter of cloven-hoofed livestock, along with other measures, were immediately implemented, freezing an area that had never seen the virus in living memory. At the BMC, the country’s main abattoir, slaughter activities were suspended. The freezers there were sitting on stock worth at least P202 million destined for export markets.

The report suggests this stock is now being distributed domestically. The country has 24 months to completely eradicate FMD and provide proof of eradication. Under the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the FMD-free status of Zone 11 has been suspended. Recovery of a suspended health status requires the WOAH member state’s veterinary authority (DVS) to submit a dossier to the WOAH demonstrating that the infection has been successfully eradicated and that strict measures are in place to prevent recurrence. If an application for the recovery of a suspended free status is not submitted within 24 months, the official FMD-free status is withdrawn by the WOAH. “This means the country must reapply from scratch, following the full procedure for initial status recognition, rather than a simpler recovery process, which often involves significantly higher costs and longer, more stringent scientific assessments,” Dikoloti said in a separate briefing.

The impact at the national level is devastating. In Mokatako, the sadness is palpable. On Tuesday, 74-year-old Moraladi summed up the mood on the ground. “We have been badly affected because our livelihoods are cattle and we don’t work. “Right now, it is badly hurting our livelihoods because we can’t trade or slaughter these cattle. “There’s a disease, and there’s nothing we can do. “We have accepted and we have resigned ourselves.”