To respond to the emergency that is created every year during the rainy season (May to July), with dozens of casualties due to landslides and the collapse of the precarious housing, the Ministry of Urbanization has started the demolition of 52 small and large slums of Abidjan, the economic capital of the Ivory Coast..
These dwellings are occupied by poor families, mostly immigrants. A delegation of the Community of Sant'Egidio, for years close to the inhabitants of these districts by means of interventions of schooling, civil registration and support to families, met the Minister of Environment to ask that evictions be accompanied by alternative housing projects and social support projects. It is necessary to prevent that thousands of families and children, including many children that attend the "Schools of Peace", are put out into the streets without receiving support from the institutions that is able to open the way for integration in the social and urban fabric.
At the end of the meeting, the Community of Sant'Egidio and the Minister of Environment agreed to a joint action and requested an audience with the Prime Minister to find concrete solutions to the phenomenon and avoid new social emergencies.
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