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afrol News, 11 April - The Senegalese government has now launched a reconstruction programme for the northern zones hard hit by the disastrous off-season rainstorms in January. Reports from the north show that thousands of people still live in temporary shelters and that most of the affected lands remain fallow. Senegalese Prime Minister Mame Madior Boye this week personally inspected the disaster zone, accompanied with three ministerial colleagues. What she saw was not encouraging; while the rains ceased three months ago, the destructions still lie as open wounds in the landscape. Normalcy could only return with external aid. Having their villages destroyed, farmers' households live in simple, temporary shelters, reminding "of the refugee camps of a country in war; one still sees some corpses of animals," reports Aboubacar Demba Cissokho, a journalist from the Senegalese news agency APS, who followed PM Boye and her delegation to the north. The heavy rain storm on 9-11 January that hit northern Senegal and southern Mauritania destroyed all belongings of thousands of cultivators. Fertile soils and the crop itself were washed off the fields. Floods eroded away fields and several villages. Livestock - normally of key importance for the prevention and management of food crises - was killed in significant numbers; by the storm itself or starving for the lack of feeding and pastures. The pastures kept rotting away in February and March. Now, there is drought and more weakened animals are dying. Visiting the affected villages and camps of Gaya, Taredji, Boyinadji and Sagata Djolof, Boye took time to listen to the complaints of the locals. "We need drinking water," or "there are no seeds to sow," and "we need help to reconstruct our villages," were the common concerns presented to her. The head of government took notes. Some estimated 22,000 households need new housing, and the reconstruction costs are estimated at 61 billion franc CFA (93 million euro). Boye ensures that the villagers will see prototypes of their new houses within six months. She appreciates the opportunity to promote her government's "new concept of rural housing," which will find its pilot programme in the ravaged villages of the north. Boye promises not only reconstruction, but also improvements, making better use of the resources available. Further, environmental planning was to be a framework for the new structures, where also health, water and electricity infrastructure would improve rural living conditions, the Dakar-based daily 'Le Soleil' reports. Meanwhile, thousands of villagers remain deprived of their normal livelihood and rely exclusively on aid. In Donaye-Tarédji, a temporal shelter for the victims of natural disasters 22 kms from Podor, an estimated 4,500 persons have waited two and a half years for reconstruction help. During the local floods of October 1999, their entire village was destroyed. The January rains ripped away the small rebuilt resources of the community. The displaced ask for a rebuilding of their village, and Boye agrees. The loss of hundreds of hectares of fertile lands previously sustaining the villagers will however be harder to replace.
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