Arriving in Abidjan

AS YOU get off the plane at Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s former capital, the first thing to hit you is the heat—heavy, humid, odorous. The next is the filth. It is everywhere, from the rubbish-infested slums that line the road into the city from the airport to the most fashionable district of Cocody, where most of the ambassadors hang out and where, more than three months after the polls that saw Alassane Ouattara elected head of state, his rival ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, continues to occupy the presidential palace.

The ubiquitous detritus has nothing to do with the latest upsurge in the violence that many fear will develop into civil war and some say already has. It is simply that the private rubbish removal companies are no longer doing their work. It has been like this for the past decade. In the 1960s and 1970s, the former French colony was the economic powerhouse of West Africa through its production of coffee and cocoa. But in the 1980s, following the first great oil shock and a series of droughts, it went into economic decline. It has never recovered from the social and political turmoil that followed.

Approaching the city centre from the airport, one can easily imagine the former sophisticated prosperity of what is still the country’s business and administrative capital. A clump of elegant sky-scrapers rise up from the palm-fringed shores of the now heavily polluted lagoon. On closer inspection, however, they look decidedly scruffy and down-at-heel, surrounded by deeply potholed, rubbish-strewn streets. It doesn’t help that today is a Sunday, so the usual bustle of hawkers, pedestrians and cars that enliven the empty drabness are missing. "Everything has gone to the dogs," my driver sighs. "At the moment, people are afraid to go out."

The past week has been particularly violent following a call by Mr Ouattara, holed up at the Hotel du Golf on the far side of town, to his supporters for an "Egyptian-style revolution". In the northern working-class suburb of Abobo, home to around 1.5m people of mixed ethnic groups, religions and political affiliations, dozens have been killed as pro-Ouattara and pro-Gbagbo youth militias slug it out, erecting barricades, burning cars, looting shops, torching houses and attacking anyone suspected of not supporting their particular side. Pro-Gbagbo police and troops, sent in supposedly to restore order, have exacerbated the situation, often using live ammunition and heavy artillery to fire on peaceful demonstrators. Thousands have fled their homes in terror.

I chance upon a taxi-driver, Matthias, who lives in Abobo and agrees to take me in. He has not dared go home for the past week, he says, but his brother has assured him that today everything is calm. The fighting comes and goes, he explains, as tensions rise and fall in response to the political situation. We drive along a tarred road, lined with rough wooden or corrugated-iron shacks, selling everything from sofas and car spare parts to mangos, hard-boiled eggs and cell-phone time. Although trade has resumed, it is slack. Scorch marks on the road, burn-out cars and the piles of tyres and broken wooden stands of hastily removed barricades bear witness to the recent fighting. But the corpses, which had lain rotting for days, are now thankfully gone. "A few days ago, you couldn’t get along these streets," Matthias marvels: "They were all blocked."

His relief is premature. At the roundabout by the Abobo town hall, near the spot where just four days earlier seven unarmed women were mown down by Mr Gbagbo’s security forces, we are stopped at an improvised barricade. A couple of youths, claiming to be searching for weapons, tell Matthias to get out and open the boot. "We want to protect our neighbourhoods," they explain. They are really checking to see who the car’s occupants are. If, by your accent or name, you are deemed to be the "enemy", you could be a dead man. We don’t even know what side the young men are on. But they are perfectly polite, even apologising for pleading for a few coins "so that we can eat". A few yards further on, there is another barricade and the same rigmarole is repeated. Again, we are let through.

At Abobo’s main hospital, a series of run-down single-storey concrete blocks, painted in blue and white and surrounded by the usual rubbish, we meet the doctor in charge. The sick and injured only dared to start coming to the hospital again the day before, he says. Which is just as well since most of the staff have also been too afraid or unable to come in. One nurse, unable to reach her home, has been sleeping in her office. The wards are virtually empty. Both sides in the conflict are equally violent, he says. "All we want is peace. So we can eat, do our work and live our  lives." He says he is relying on the "international community" to get the country out of its impasse. By doing what? I ask. He rolls his eyes and lifts his hands to heaven.

On the wall outside the hospital, a sign in the midst of the piles of rotting debris sternly warns would-be litterers "Défense de jeter des ordures: 5,000fr" (local francs, just over $10) for doing so. Further on, down a deeply rutted alley, where no car should ever be allowed to venture, another hand-written sign proclaims: "Défense de pisser; 15,000 fr". This is where Matthias lives and he is proud of his neighbourhood. "This is one of the best areas in Abobo," he proclaims. By this he means that it is one of the least violent. He lives in a decrepit concrete bungalow in a dirt compound, surrounded by a high breeze-block wall, together with his wife and four children, and his brother’s widow and her five children. All have been sent to relatives in the country for safety. He is relieved to find his home intact.

As we leave, a volley of gunshots rings out, then silence. Matthias is visibly nervous. The road back into town, totally clear when we came through a couple of hours ago, is now bristling with barricades. We are stopped, all the car doors torn open and a swarm of edgy youths in tank-tops and jeans enter the car, wrenching open pockets and diving under the seats in their search for hidden weapons. They find none, but demand money, a lot this time. A few yards further on, we are stopped again by more shouting youths, nervous, aggressive, angry. And then again, a third time, around the same roundabout in front of the town hall. One youth is so drunk he can’t even keep his eyes focussed. "We’re doing this to protect our communities," he slurs. I assure him that he’s doing an excellent job and, after a further dollop of cash, we are allowed to go on our way. It is only afterwards that Matthias admits he has a big machete hidden under his seat.