Senegalese Residents Bemoan as Floods Ravage Homes

House owners, occupants, and every resident affected by the flood that caused damages in the capital city Dakar have expressed dissatisfaction with the government over its unfulfilled promises to ameliorate the perennial flooding issues they experience whenever it rains.

This unhappiness was spurned by the heavy flood that struck after two days of rain. The population in the capital city is estimated at about 3.7 million people and witness regular floods during the July-October rainy season. But the problem is getting worse.

Going for inspection, Senegal’s Interior Minister Antoine Felix Abdoulaye Diome got up to his knees in water, in a suburb of the West African country’s capital, while surveying flood damage.

The first home he visited was in the eastern Keur Massar district which the first floor and courtyard have been submerged in brown water for three days and dragonflies doing party over the swampy courtyard, which alone pump is struggling to drain. Inside, furniture has been raised off the ground.

Expressing how he feels, the owner of the home, who declined to be named, said it is scathing.

“They are incapable,” he tells AFP, gesturing towards the minister and his entourage
Anger has been growing over the increasingly routine flooding in Dakar.

Diome and other officials were booed as they toured Keur Massar, and protesters elsewhere in Dakar blocked a highway.
Moise David Ndour, another Keur Massar resident, is also fed up. “Nothing has been done,” he says. “Some people have even moved away because of this”.

Many are expecting worse flooding to come as the rains continue.

According to experts interviewed by AFP, whole districts are built on flood plains, and on soft soils close to the water table. Planning is haphazard and local authorities appear to exert little control.

In Mbao, another Dakar suburb, it hasn’t rained in three days, but the main road is still flooded with stagnant water.

Motorbikes, scooters, and public transportation vehicles can no longer use it.

Ibrahim Cisse, a local with water lapping around his ankles, says “we have no choice but to get wet or use the horse-drawn carriages to cross the street”.

In front of him, about a dozen people are perched on a horse-cart, which are common in Senegal but are mostly used to transport goods.

“There is a lot of damage, the shopkeepers can’t open,” says another local, who declines to be named. “We have to get past this”.
But Cheikh Gueye, the geographer, is pessimistic.

“We build in flood zones: Every day new neighbourhoods are created, and the same mistakes are made”.

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