Police destroy three hectares of dagga fields at Sihhoye
On 28 October 2025 the Royal Eswatini Police Service destroyed three hectares of illegal dagga fields and large quantities of harvested dagga in the Nhlambane area of Sihhoye, along the Nkomanzi River, as part of Operation Thunder. No arrests were reported.
🇸🇿 Nhlambane area, Sihhoye, Tshaneni Police Station area · Eswatini
On Tuesday 28 October 2025, as part of the nationwide anti-narcotics campaign Operation
Thunder, the Royal Eswatini Police Service destroyed three hectares of illegal dagga fields
and large quantities of harvested dagga in the Nhlambane area of Sihhoye, under Tshaneni
Police Station jurisdiction.[1]The fields lay along the Nkomanzi River.[1]
Deputy police spokesperson Assistant Superintendent Nosipho Mnguni said REPS was using
intelligence, aerial reconnaissance and mobile units to find hidden plantations and that field
operations were being intensified.[1]The report names no arrests or suspects linked to
the Sihhoye site.[1]
Police photographs published with the story show officers spraying standing plants and burning
harvested dagga.[1]
Photos and video
REPS personnel spraying dagga fields during the operation, credited to REPS on Facebook.Photo details
The Eswatini Cannabis Association demanded an immediate halt to aerial and drone spraying of cannabis fields with herbicides, alleging paraquat, glyphosate and dicamba use without environmental assessment or registered applicators. Police continued Operation Thunder, destroying fields and seizing hundreds of kilograms.
The Royal Swaziland Police Department said an ongoing operation destroys cannabis grown for commercial sale, and that marijuana valued at nearly $1 million was burned in a recent operation. Cultivation is concentrated in remote, hard-to-reach areas where families such as 75-year-old Gogo Thwala's grow small plots of dagga to buy food.
Swazi anti-drug police reported seizing 2,407 kg of compressed cannabis and destroying 356.5 hectares of plantations in the first seven months of 2006. A search-and-destroy patrol in the northern Hhohho region found hundreds of tall dagga plants but no growers, as foot patrols with weed killer replaced withdrawn South African air support.
Swazi police, with South African police helicopters locating the fields, destroyed 2,500 hectares of marijuana in the northern Hhohho region in raids early in 2002. Growers fled as defoliants were sprayed, and Mbabane street prices rose 40 percent on the reduced crop.
