Beach paradise to sewer

Dakar – On Dakar’s long Hann Bay beach, a lone figure with a shovel and wheelbarrow picks up mounds of rubbish in such quantities that the task takes on an almost mythological air.

The smell is acrid. A few metres from the man, a pipe carries a black mixture of household and factory wastewater into the sea.

Once considered one of the most beautiful coves in Africa, the former idyllic stretch of fine sand around 20km long, adjacent to the port of Dakar, has become the dumping ground for an increasing population and ever-expanding industry.

Most of Senegal’s manufacturing industry is located along the bay and discharges its waste directly into it.

A clean-up project launched in 2018 with financial support from the French Development Agency, Invest International, the Chinese Development Bank and the European Union has stalled.

The National Sanitation Agency has just announced the resumption of the work that has been suspended for months.

On the seafront a woman is pouring the remains of her lunch pot onto the shore, which is teeming with insects.

“Here, you cast your nets and bring in rubbish, and you get sick,” complains 53-year-old fisherman Modou Ndong.

In some places, it is almost impossible to see the sand beneath the rubbish.

Every few hundred metres, a sewage pipe discharges into the sea, turning the water blood-red at the end of the slaughterhouse pipe and pitch black from the chemical industry and the local tannery.

Amidou Sonko, a marine specialist, has confirmed the “high toxicity”.

His analyses revealed concentrations of E. coli bacteria 13 to 100 times higher than the limit and the presence of salmonella.