Ibrahima Bathily said that he no longer recognizes the beachfront in the area of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, where he grew up.
“The entire coast is privatized. It has become impossible to access the sea without paying,” Bathily said.
Buildings have sprung up on all sides of his makeshift bar that stands on rocks facing the Atlantic Ocean.
Photo: AFP
Even the 100m beachfront strip that is state-owned and prohibited from being built on has not escaped.
Just a few years ago, bathers thronged the area, enjoying a cool dip in the waves overlooked by the city’s emblematic Mamelles twin hills.
However, Dakar has undergone voracious building work. Home to about one-quarter of Senegal’s population and its economic hub, the number of Dakar residents swells by 3 percent every year.
Photo: AFP
As the capital of a west African nation renowned as stable in a troubled region, the city also draws many foreigners.
Construction sites are everywhere, real-estate prices are soaring and the coastline is disappearing under a sea of concrete.
“It’s incredibly fast. You wake up one day and you find a building somewhere,” Bathily said.
He said he has been approached several times to give up his bar in return for money. Such an offer can be tough to turn down when the median wage was 54,000 CFA francs (US$89.01) a month in 2017.
All around the peninsula on which Dakar is built, beaches have been nibbled back to a bare minimum.
Locals are despondent about the loss of access due to the arrival of luxury hotels, villas or clinics, as well as over how it has all been allowed to happen.
However, despite public exasperation, “we are unable to truly unite energy and forces,” said Oumar Diagne, of the SOS Littoral non-governmental organization.
Building screeched to a halt at the end of April after Senegal’s newly elected leaders took over, pledging integrity and transparency.
They ordered a two-month suspension of all construction on the strip that remains in the state’s hands to verify the legality of occupancy rights.
The outcome is eagerly awaited, Bathily said.
However, records in the land registry are notoriously difficult to decipher despite them now being online.
The vast financial sums at stake also feed suspicions of widescale money laundering.
“Real estate is a sector that is particularly targeted by money launderers” whether for drug trafficking, illegal migration or corruption, a Senegalese Ministry of Finance unit tasked with fighting money laundering and financing of terrorism said.
“Senegal is no exception,” it said, mentioning only “inspections” when describing what action it takes.
Many buildings do have the proper deeds.
Mamadou Diangar, a public law researcher, said that authorities can permit building to go ahead by delisting a spot on the strip.
Lawmakers did not set “precise criteria” for the delisting of a building, leaving the law open to interpretation, Diangar said.
Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko promised while still in opposition that he would ensure all illegally constructed buildings were pulled down.
However, that could prove “legally very complicated and costly, because these are not small investments,” Diangar said.
“Is the budget of the Senegalese state able to bear this compensation?” he asked.
“It will need strong political choices,” he added.
Sonko chose a Dakar beach with a building site backdrop when he pledged to crack down on offenders in 2020.
Those projects are now complete, with several-story-high luxury buildings blotting out a stretch of the old beach.
Not far away, the cabin of former fisherman Bathie Faye has survived.
Considered a temporary structure, it is authorized to be on the strip where Faye earns a living providing services to those using what is left of the beach, but he fears the demand for beachfront real estate means it is only a matter of time before he is made to move on.
It would not be the first time. During the administration of former Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, who also vowed to combat rampant building, police turned up one day and dismantled Faye’s previous cabin ahead of the start of construction work.
“You can’t fight people who are stronger than you,” he said.
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
CRACKDOWN: The Indonesian president vowed to clamp down on ‘treason and terrorism,’ while acceding to some protest demands to revoke lawmaker benefits Protests in Indonesia over rising living costs and inequality intensified overnight, prompting Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to cancel a planned trip to China, while demonstrators reportedly targeted the homes of the finance minister and several lawmakers. Rioters entered Indonesian Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati’s residence near Jakarta early yesterday, but were repelled by armed forces personnel, Kompas reported. Items were taken from the homes of lawmaker Ahmad Sahroni and two others, according to Detik.com. The reports of looting could not be independently verified, and the finance ministry has not responded to requests for comment. The protests were sparked by outrage over
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
RSS