Rising sea threatens to swallow Senegal coastal town

Bargny, Senegal: Ndeye Yacine Dieng looked helplessly at the dilapidated state of her once large and inviting home, the latest victim of the encroaching sea in Bargny, on Senegal's western Atlantic coast.

Cracked and collapsed walls, damaged roofs and sunken buildings are commonplace in the town just outside the capital Dakar, in one of the areas most threatened by rising sea levels in the West African country.

Creeping coastal erosion stalks the locals, who fear their homes will soon disappear if nothing is done to stop the tide.

Senegal loses 0.5 to two metres (yards) of coastline every year, the environment ministry says, pointing to rising sea levels, surface water runoff, sand extraction from beaches and coastal construction.

A young man stands inside a destroyed house along the eroded coastline in Bargny on August 22, 2020. Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP

The latest episode of flooding in mid-August swallowed part of 67-year-old Dieng's seafront home, despite the tyres and sandbags erected to block the waves.

The destruction has prompted six of her 10 children to leave home, with the few habitable rooms left in her house blighted by dampness.

The boundary wall also fell prey to the sea, with the courtyard where the family gather to drink tea now exposed to prying neighbours.

Dieng's is one of around 30 houses to have been damaged in the area, leaving several families without a roof over their heads.

'No more land'

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has long warned of rising sea levels linked to global warming, with populations living along Africa's coastlines particularly at risk.

The UN body says climate change will mean more frequent and severe flooding, increased coastal erosion and extreme weather events, which could occur every year instead of once a century in the past.

In Bargny, which is home to some 70,000 people, residents say the coastline has receded by around 60 metres since the early 1980s, with the problem worsening in recent years.

Women walk past destroyed buildings along the eroded coastline in Bargny on September 03, 2020. Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP

Dieng has lived in the town her whole life and says she now can't sleep at night for fear the sea will invade her home again.

She has placed her hope in the new government of Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye, elected in March, to find a solution to ward off the rising waves.

"There used to be a cemetery here, mosques, playgrounds, but everything has been swallowed up", Dieng said, pointing out to sea.

Her 63-year-old neighbour, Ibrahima Diouf, worked nearby reinforcing a makeshift barrier to protect his seafront home from the rising waves.

A few children helped him load layers of cement onto a damaged section of the structure.

Diouf said he was aware of climate change but had no intention of leaving his family home.

"My grandparents lived here, my mother lives here. Why leave, and where to? There's no more land in Bargny. I'll fix it up as many times as necessary", he said.

Migration

Bargny's transformation from a small fishing village to an ever-expanding industrial zone has brought with it a sharp rise in pollution levels.

The town is home to one of the largest cement factories in West Africa and a coal-fired power station.

The growing scarcity of fish, encroaching water levels, difficult living conditions and a lack of prospects have driven many young people to attempt the perilous crossing to Europe.

Television's and buckets are piled up in a destroyed house in Bargny on September 02, 2020. Photo by JOHN WESSELS / AFP

The Atlantic route is particularly dangerous, with thousands of deaths and disappearances every year on overloaded, often unseaworthy boats.

A young resident, Mamdou Seck, joked that Bargny had been nicknamed the "AIBD" of irregular emigration, referring to Dakar's international airport to demonstrate the scale of departures from the town.

Medoune Ndoye, a member of a citizens' environmental group in Bargny, said the government should act swiftly to build breakwaters and restore the marine ecosystem by planting cacti, coconut and other coastal trees.

If not, he warned, the village would be nothing more than a memory in a few years' time.