Flood victims in land dispute

A row has erupted in Malawi between displaced flood victims and a sugar company they said is the cause of their problems, BBC reported on Monday. Local leaders say 30,000 people were forced to move on to the Shire River flood plain when the Malawian government leased their land to the Illovo Sugar Company in 1992. The villagers from the southern Lower Shire district of Chikwawa have lodged an official complaint with the Malawian authorities. The villagers are asking for some of the land to be given back to them, because they maintain most of it is lying idle. But the sugar company says all the land is being put to productive use. The authorities in Malawi have been telling more than 300,000 people displaced by floods that they should move to higher ground.