Wednesday, May 03, 2017

Ethiopia's deadly rubbish dump landslide sparks landrights battle

(May 3, ADDIS ABABA,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation))--Aworar Meka had been living and working at the Reppi rubbish dump in Addis Ababa for only one month when tragedy struck.  A giant landslide at the 50-year-old dump, the Ethiopian capital's only landfill site, hit his neighbourhood on March 11, destroying dozens of homes and killing at least 115 people. 

Meka was one of the lucky ones; the 28-year-old, his wife, and young son survived. Their home, a makeshift tent made of tarpaulin and corrugated iron, narrowly avoided being crushed. "It was only chance that we escaped," Meka told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

But more than six weeks on, he and the other 30-odd households relocated to one of the government-built housing project down the road from Reppi feel angry and abandoned.

"We expected help to come. But it was a false hope," Meka said. Survivors resettled in another project, several kilometres away in a place called Asko, said they had been told not to talk to the media.  Read the complete story at Reuters Africa »

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