Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HIV & AIDS
Zambia has one of the world's highest HIV and AIDS rates. Around 14% of adults are infected, and although ac-
cess to anti-retroviral therapy (ART) has improved and lowered the death rate, the disease has claimed enough
lives that life expectancy hovers around 52 years (a significant improvement nevertheless from over a decade ago,
when it was 42 years). According to a UN report issued in 2012, an estimated 72% of 480,000 Zambians were re-
ceiving ART (though significantly, only one in four children in need were receiving treatment).
AIDS hasn't just devastated households and communities, the loss of healthy workers, especially at planting
and harvesting time, means the economy and national development have been weakened as well. Children
orphaned by parents who have died as a result of AIDS (nearly 700,000) have swelled the population of 'street
kids' living in roadside sewers and on central reservations in urban centres.
History
The first of the 'modern' (eg still found today) ethnic groups of Zambia to arrive were the
Tonga and Ila peoples (sometimes combined as the Tonga-Ila), who migrated from the
Congo area in the late 15th century. By 1550 they had occupied the Zambezi Valley and
plateau areas north of where Lake Kariba is now - and which is still their homeland today.
Next to arrive were the Chewa. Between the 14th and 16th centuries they followed a long
and circuitous route via Lakes Mweru, Tanganyika and Malawi before founding a power-
ful kingdom covering much of present-day eastern Zambia, as well as parts of Malawi and
Mozambique. Today, the Chewa are still the largest group in eastern Zambia.
The Bemba (most notably the ruling Ngandu clan) had migrated from Congo by cross-
ing the Luapula River into northern Zambia by around 1700. Meanwhile, the Lamba
people migrated to the area of the Copperbelt in about 1650. At around the same time, the
related Lala settled in the region around Serenje.
Meanwhile, in western Zambia, the Lozi people established a dynasty and the basis of a
solid political entity that still exists. The Lozi's ancestors may have migrated from what is
now Angola as early as AD 450.
Early 19th Century
In the early 19th century, the fearsome reputation of the newly powerful and highly dis-
ciplined warrior army under the command of Shaka Zulu in KwaZulu Natal (South
Africa) led to a domino effect of groups who lived in his path fleeing elsewhere and in
turn displacing other groups. This included the Ngoni, who fled to Malawi and Zambia, as
