Bertin Gnangon Aba was asleep when he heard the sound of bulldozers razing his house in northern Abidjan, by far Ivory Coast’s largest city.
“They destroyed everything I had, even my identity card. They didn’t even give me the time to take anything. Everything has been destroyed,” Aba, who is in his 60s, told AFP. He was forced to flee his home in just his “vest and underwear”.
Aba is among tens of thousands in Abidjan who have had their homes and businesses crushed by government bulldozers, in a policy aimed at tackling disorder and squalor in the city.
A government information leaflet pictures a man standing next to a removal van and smiling, surrounded by boxes. The brochure promises measures to help relocate and support displaced residents.
But people in Abidjan’s demolished neighbourhoods said they had a very different experience. Thousands of families saw their belongings buried under the rubble after a violent mission that included robberies, tear gas and excavators arriving at dawn.
In Abattoir — a diverse and working-class neighbourhood located between an open-air tannery, a crowded cattle shed and the Ebrie lagoon — nothing remained.
“Development? Looks good to me!,” said Philippe Kouame, pointing at the upscale and thriving neighbourhood of “Zone 4” on the other side of the lagoon as he sat on a mended chair, surrounded by piles of rubbish.
“But us, how are we supposed to live? It’s tough… The authorities should think about us a bit. We understand them, but they should understand us too,” the 44-year-old sighed.
‘Dirty job’
Everyone in this neighbourhood who spoke to AFP, including Kouame, said they were given no compensation or alternative accommodation.
As an artist who was made homeless and with no income, Kouame said he did not have the means of finding a place to live, like many of his old neighbours.
Left with no other choice, he decided to remain in the ruins of his family home, because he was “born here”.
“We don’t know where to go, so we’re forced to stay here,” said Hamed, an upholsterer who sleeps in the nearby cemetery at night.
The governor of Abidjan district, Ibrahima Cisse Bacongo, said he had been tasked by President Alassane Ouattara with doing the “dirty job” of turning the city into a modern and prosperous showcase of Ivory Coast.
Although the construction of numerous roads, bridges and buildings has seen Abidjan undergo a spectacular transformation in the last 10 years, working-class neighbourhoods remain an eyesore in the eyes of the state.
The relocation push’s originally stated purpose was to avoid the “grave loss of human life” triggered by landslides and floods during the rainy season in June by demolishing neighbourhoods built in at-risk parts of the city.
The authorities have plans for the demolished neighbourhoods, including Abattoir: a business district, an array of upscale homes and a recreational quarter with restaurants and playgrounds for children.
Around Kouame and his neighbours, who were gathered together under tarpaulin, dumper trucks were already in action, with workers putting walls and fences in place.
Meanwhile, a teacher wove his way through the rubble, carrying a leather briefcase containing a maths book he uses to teach his former students, whose school has been destroyed.
‘Humanitarian disaster’
Ivory Coast’s National Council for Human Rights has denounced the “operations carried out in disregard of fundamental rights” and “without consultation”, while Amnesty International condemned the government’s “excessive use of force”.
Pulcherie Gbalet, an Ivorian human rights activist close to some opposition parties said it was a “humanitarian disaster created by the state”.
Her organisation, the Coalition of Victims Threatened and Affected by Displacement in Ivory Coast (Covimed-CI), estimates that “at least 20,000 evictions have taken place”.
Gbalet said the “committee on continuing to house neighbourhoods at risk” met for the first time a week after demolition operations were suspended.
Several inhabitants had been evicted a long time prior.
In just two neighbourhoods of around 30 demolished sites, a few residents said they had received envelopes containing 250,000 CFA francs ($398 USD) per demolished home. Less than 10 percent of those affected have received this compensation, said Covimed-CI.
In Abattoir, governor Bacongo insisted that a comprehensive biometric census had been carried out, although this was disputed by residents. Bacongo said the residents would be relocated “in a few months”.
The government has also announced a “resettlement” programme for 3,000 evicted people in the far-off northern suburb of the city.
“My job isn’t an easy one,” Bacongo said.
“I accepted it with the knowledge that I would have to harm many people,” he said, adding that he had dreams of seeing the Ivory Coast produce a “pearl of the lagoons” to compete with the grandeur of Dubai and the cleanliness of Rwanda’s Kigali — whatever the cost.
