Chitima, Mozambique, June 30, 2025 (Lusa) - Ten years ago, Luisa woke up in Chitima to the sound of crying and shouting from her neighbours. More than 200 people, 75 of whom lost their lives, suffered poisoning after consuming “pombe”, a traditional drink that remains “cultural” in the interior of Tete.
“I woke up to the sound of people crying and went to see what was happening.
They told me that people were dying because of pombe. It was deeply saddening. It felt like a massacre,” Luisa Domingos, a teacher at Chitima Primary School who lived through the tragedy that struck the village, almost 147 kilometres from the provincial capital of Tete, told Lusa.
The first reports of what people would later describe as the “Chitima tragedy” began in the early hours of 10 January 2015, when the local health centre began receiving dozens of patients with similar symptoms.
More than 200 people had consumed pombe made from corn flour contaminated with a bacterium called Burkholderia gladioli, a microorganism that produces two powerful toxins in the flour, the Ministry of Health revealed months later.
Luisa still remembers those who had to provide first aid to the victims of the tragedy in her neighbourhood during that early morning.
“There were children among the victims (...) There is a custom here: sometimes breastfeeding mothers go to these places to drink pombe. One of them, who usually did not drink it, went there to try it with her baby, and she also ended up losing her life,” she recalls.
In total, official figures released at the time state that 232 people fell ill after consuming the drink, 75 of whom died in a tragedy that led the government to declare three days of national mourning and set up a multisectoral team to investigate the causes.
Today, more than 10 years later, pombe has “survived” the Chitima tragedy, and people in almost every corner of that village in the interior of the Cahora Bassa district continue to consume it. The tragedy remains alive in the collective memory of the province.
“It’s a cultural thing. It’s ours. We drink it because we like it,” explains Jecksen Faz-tudo, 22, a regular pombe drinker in Chitima, to Lusa.
It’s late on Sunday afternoon in Chitima and, although he is thinking about school the next day, Jecksen has decided to get a group of friends together to “worship” a “tradition”: drinking pombe.
In the backyard of one of the many houses where pombe is sold and consumed in the centre of Chitima, Jecksen and his friends socialise to the sound of loud local music, drinking from the same glass, as tradition dictates, the same drink that once caused the worst tragedy the village has ever known.
“It’s tasty, and its effects become apparent over time—the drink has survived,” says the young consumer, glass in hand.
The simple production process, involving only corn flour and water, has made the business attractive to both sellers and consumers, as you can get “a glass” for just five meticais (€0.06).
“The drinks in shops are beyond my budget. With pombe, for 20 meticais (€0.26) or 30 meticais (€0.40), I’m satisfied (…) No drink surpasses pombe. It’s our culture,” stresses Raul Antonio, another consumer, sitting with a group of older men drinking the beverage in the same yard.
It is a “culture” that welcomes every age and class, bringing together, in yards where people sell and consume it. These different facets make up the communities in the interior of that province, located in central Mozambique.
“This is our drink, and it defines us, this is our drink,” says Raul Antonio, minutes before taking another sip of the drink that, 10 years ago, plunged Chitima into mourning.
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