Travel Guide Kabwe

Kabwe is a town of 120,000 inhabitants best known as the home of Broken Hill Man. In 1921, the remains of this 200,000-year-old human, Homo rhodesiensis, one of the ancestors of the oldest bipedal Homo Sapiens in central and southern Africa, were discovered nearby.Today, the downtown area is a bit confusing, but the tree-lined alleys and stores make for a pleasant walk. Kabwe was once home to a zinc and lead mining industry, but the mines closed in 1994 due to the risk of lead poisoning. In August 2022, a study published by Human Right Watch made a worrying statement: 30% of the inhabitants of the city's poor townships were contaminated by lead, i.e. 76,000 inhabitants, and half of the children had reached levels that would already require medical treatment. These include the townships of Kasanda, Makandanyama, Chowa, Mutwe Wansofu and Makululu.