The residents of Kanseche, in Malawi, accuse ABF of being responsible, through its subsidiary Illovo Sugar, for the devastating 2022 floods.

A group of over 1,700 Malawian citizens has filed a lawsuit against British multinational ABF over the 2022 floods in the village of Kanseche. Located in the southern part of the country, the village was struck by Storm Ana, which destroyed much of its homes and killed seven people, while hundreds of families remain displaced to this day.

The village residents accuse ABF of being responsible for the flooding due to the high embankments erected to protect the sugarcane plantations managed by its subsidiary Illovo Sugar. These are said to have channelled floodwaters directly towards the village, contributing to its destruction. ABF, however, denies any responsibility.

On 24 January 2022, Storm Ana struck the southern regions of Malawi. The area has long been vulnerable to heavy rainfall caused by cyclones forming in the Mozambique Channel, but on that occasion the scale of destruction was far worse than usual. Among the hardest-hit villages was Kanseche, where approximately 300 millimetres of rain fell within just 24 hours. Floodwaters inundated the roads as residents fled, some finding refuge in trees. The final toll was seven deaths, including children, and hundreds of displaced people who, more than four years on, have still not been able to return to their destroyed and never-rebuilt homes. It took three days for the waters to recede.

The village of Kanseche is located in an area of great importance to Malawi's economy. Large sugarcane plantations, which developed from the 1960s onwards, are established here. In 1997, Illovo Sugar — the country's largest sugar producer and one of the companies within the major British conglomerate ABF, which also owns the clothing brand Primark — acquired the Nchalo estate, covering 200 square kilometres to the west of Kanseche. It is precisely the management of these plantations, which supply sugar to companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé, that the village residents hold responsible for the flood that destroyed their homes.

A group of 1,729 people, affected by the severe consequences of Storm Ana, have filed a lawsuit against ABF because they believe that what happened in 2022 is linked to the high flood defences built around the sugarcane plantation.

The embankments, roughly the height of a person, are said to have prevented floodwaters from dispersing across the fields — as had happened in the past — and instead caused them to pour with great force directly into the village, destroying it. "The embankment diverted the natural course of the Mwanza River towards the village of Kanseche, more than doubling the force of the floodwater," explained the lawyers representing the local community.

British consultancy JBA Risk Management was commissioned by the organisation Water Witness to carry out simulations in order to determine whether the sugarcane plantation embankments had indeed contributed to the 2022 disaster. In its findings, the firm sided with the local community, concluding that water levels rose by up to 1.3 metres as a result of the embankment, and that had it not been present, the buildings in Kanseche would have been safe from structural damage and most locations would have been safe for people. As early as 2018, the Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (Crdf) had already challenged the practice of raising embankments to protect plantations, warning that it could create problems for surrounding communities.

Multinational ABF has disputed the local community's account and the results of the consultancy's simulation. It states that Storm Ana caused £7.4 million in damages to its Kanseche plantations and that the homes of its workers within the estate also sustained damage.

In recent weeks, however, the London High Court ruled that the case will proceed to trial, with a hearing scheduled before May 2028. This opens up the possibility of compensation for the local community.