Authorities in Ivory Coast's largest city are demolishing homes in low-income areas over what they say are public health concerns, leaving thousands without shelter and with nowhere to goA school girl walks past houses that were demolished on public health grounds in the Gesco neighborhood of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024.
However, the latest Abidjan demolition — mainly in impoverished suburbs in the Gesco and Sebroko districts — is one of the largest in years, with an estimated hundreds of thousands of residents affected since it began in late January. Evicted families and rights groups say that this time, it's being done without prior notice or compensation.
Local authorities have defended the demolitions, and say relocations of families left homeless to safer areas has started. The school was not informed it would be demolished — neither by the Ivory Coast’s ministry of construction nor the national education ministry, said Sévérin Okpo Abe, the school's founder. The children were eventually enrolled in other nearby schools.
The evictions broke up families and the homeless were scattered across the city, she added. “We no longer have a home, we no longer have our family, we no longer have our children next to us.” On April 8, the government announced it's started to compensate affected households and that each would get about $405 to support the relocation. In a country where the minimum wage is about $121 a month, some believe it's not enough to afford the growing cost of housing.
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