Guinea landfill survivors question mass burial plan

Families affected by a deadly landfill collapse in Guinea's capital asked for help with rehousing and questioned a planned mass burial as President Mamadi Doumbouya visited the Dar es Salam neighbourhood on Saturday.

At least 34 people were killed when a huge mound of rubbish collapsed onto homes in the Conakry district after heavy rain in the early hours of last Sunday. Another 33 people were injured, six of them seriously.

Authorities have since been demolishing other houses in the zone considered at risk from the rubbish dump. The operation had been announced days before the disaster. Some residents said they were given only 24 hours' notice that their homes would be destroyed, while others said they did not know until bulldozers arrived at dawn.

Doumbouya visited the site nearly a week after the collapse, an AFP journalist witnessed. Presidential spokesman General Amara Camara said the president came to “empathise with the pain of the whole population” and to check that instructions for work at the site had been carried out.

Camara said authorities planned to clear the whole site of rubbish and turn it into an urban park. Guinea's government has said around 1,500 families are to be rehoused.

Some local residents objected to the planned mass burial. “The dead are not anonymous,” said Mamadou Mouctar Bah, a local resident and spokesman for a committee representing people affected by the disaster and subsequent demolitions.

In a statement to local television, the group called for more consultation on the planned mass burial, state aid for rehousing, fulfilment of commitments made to victims and compensation for owners whose homes were destroyed or demolished.

“All my family is sleeping out in the open under the heavy rains,” one local resident told AFP.

The government had said it was evicting residents and securing the area around the landfill because of the risk of further landslides.