Africa-Press – Malawi. In a small village called Kanseche in southern Malawi, a quiet night turned into a nightmare. On January 24, 2022, deadly floodwaters swept through homes while people slept. Children were ripped from their mothers’ arms. Families climbed trees and rooftops to survive. Some didn’t make it. The bodies of a one-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl were never found.
The villagers believe this was no ordinary disaster. And now, they are taking on one of the world’s biggest sugar empires to prove it.
More than 1,700 survivors from Kanseche are suing Illovo Sugar Malawi and its UK parent company, Associated British Foods (ABF) — the same multinational that owns Primark and Silver Spoon — in the High Court in London. They say Illovo’s giant sugar plantation in nearby Nchalo made the flooding worse by building walls to protect its fields, with no thought for the people living next door.
These embankments, built to keep sugarcane dry, allegedly turned the storm into a death trap by forcing water straight into Kanseche. The villagers had no warnings, no evacuation plan, no protection. Just water, snakes, crocodiles, sewage — and panic.
“It was like a monster,” said survivor Milliam Jose. “We watched everything disappear.”
A report by the UK-based NGO Water Witness International backs up their claims. It says Illovo was warned as early as 2018 that its structures could make floods worse. It didn’t listen.
“We believe ABF built its climate defences by sacrificing poor Malawians,” said Dr. Nick Hepworth of Water Witness. “This is not just a flood story. It’s a story of climate injustice.”
The lawsuit, led by British law firm Leigh Day, describes the embankments as “walls that shielded the plantation while sending floodwaters into people’s homes.”
But this disaster is just part of a bigger, uglier picture — one where powerful companies take land, resources, and lives, while offering little in return.
Illovo, owned by ABF, has been operating in Malawi for decades, often leasing massive plots of land under a colonial-era law that allows 99-year leases. In Chisita, over 400 farmers have been fighting since 1979 to get back 600 hectares they say were taken unfairly. Even the chief who gave the land away says it was supposed to be temporary.
Three years after the flood, many Kanseche residents are still homeless. They live in crowded shelters with no clean water, little food, and no schooling for their children. Some, desperate to survive, have tried to harvest sugarcane from Illovo’s fields — only to be beaten or chased off by security guards.
Meanwhile, Illovo’s sugar still ends up in your tea, sold across the UK, EU, and U.S., through brands like Coca-Cola, Silver Spoon, and others. But behind that sweetness is a bitter truth.
ABF and Illovo deny any wrongdoing. They say the flood defenses followed all legal guidelines. But they’ve offered no apology, no compensation, and no public explanation of how seven people died and hundreds lost everything.
“This is not just about sugar,” said Dr. Hepworth. “It’s about whose lives matter — and who pays the price for our everyday products.”
For the people of Kanseche, this lawsuit is not just about money. It’s about being seen. It’s about justice. It’s about saying to the world: our lives are worth more than your profit.
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