Omuramba

Omuramba (plural: ''Omiramba'') is the term for ancient river-beds found in the

Kalahari Desert The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, notably in the North Eastern part of

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and North Western part of

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

. The word is taken from the

Herero language Herero (, ''Otjiherero'') is a Bantu language spoken by the Herero and Mbanderu peoples in Namibia and Botswana, as well as by small communities of people in southwestern Angola. There were 211,700 speakers in 2014. Distribution Its lingui ...

. An omuramba provides occasional standing pools of water and more fertility than in the surrounding sand plains. Some specific omiramba are named:

Eiseb Eiseb, also Eiseb Block, is a settlement in the Omaheke Region of Namibia. It is named after the Eiseb River, an ephemeral river (''omuramba'') in the Kalahari desert. Eiseb is situated on the District road D1635 northeast of Talismanus and b ...

Rietfontein Rietfontein is a town in ZF Mgcawu District Municipality located in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It functions as the Rietfontein Borderpost with Namibia during the day hours of 08:00-16:30, that gives access to and from south-east ...

Epukiro Epukiro is a cluster of small settlements in the remote eastern part of the Omaheke Region of Namibia, situated about northeast of the regional capital Gobabis. The centre of the populated area is the Catholic mission station. Epukiro had about ...

, Omatako. They mostly start in the central parts of Namibia and run into the central parts of Botswana. The depth and width of the beds varies, with some being 3 to 4 km wide. Omiramba that were perennial rivers about 16.000 years ago now flow only for short distances, and only after heavy rains. Herdsmen love to make their cattle posts in or near omiramba, so they do not need to use their pumping equipment to extract subterranean water, which may be as deep as 300 m. Historically, they are known for battles which were fought along their winding courses, notably the

Herero Herero may refer to: * Herero people, a people belonging to the Bantu group, with about 240,000 members alive today * Herero language, a language of the Bantu family (Niger-Congo group) * Herero and Namaqua Genocide * Herero chat, a species of b ...

-German war in 1904, which ended in a terrible

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...

that killed nearly 70 percent of the Herero population and saw many others flee down the omiramba, which were then in the dry season and inhospitable. The omiramba were also home to

Bushmen The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, ...

people in pre-colonial times. Geography of Namibia Geography of Botswana Kalahari Desert Former rivers {{Namibia-geo-stub