The city of Douala has over the years been in constant waste pollution which is no small way an open door to various kinds of diseases. The situation has been made worse due to insufficiency of the waste management company Hysacam which for some time now has been facing some financial issues to run its affairs. The workers of the said company are often on strike claiming their allowances are not been paid. This has greatly impacted the economic city as several homes are in daily problems of managing their waste products. It has become a normal phenomenon to see bins overflooded with garbage in major road junctions like Bapanda , central marker, Carrefour Anatole just to name a few. The local on their part being unable to pile the waste in their homes, turn to carry and dump it at the roadsides for God knows when they will be emptied.
In this situation those living around such neighborhoods turn to suffer the damaging consequences. Not only are they overburden with the overflooded garbage that meets them at their doorstep, their health situation is equally down the rail making them very vulnerable to diseases such as cholera, Malaria and several others.
Visiting the New Diedo neighborhood in the Douala 1 municipality at the time of this report was a whole bail of garbage piled at the roadside, and the Hysacam bin abandoned at the center of the road, waste piled right up to the gates of the inhabitants of the area. This has even blocked the passage for even pedestrians to scale through talkless of vehicles who barely meander their way in to move over the other side. It is worth noting that this pile of garbage is just beside the Primary government school ( École Publique New Diedo), where holiday classes are currently ongoing. The question is how on earth do both the teachers and pupils survive this deplorable situation? Have their systems been immuned to the pollution or have they become so used to, to the situation?
Interviewing a fish vendor of the locality who is known as Ma Fish said the situation is very pathetic as it affects her business “There is too much dirty in New Diedo it’s just everywhere. Am roasting fish but there’s no way for customers to eat because there’s no way that a customer will seat and eat. Flies everywhere,when you look at the cable lines the flies are there until it can even cutoff the cables, there is no way to eat. Even when we dry our white clothes they all get dirty. Ma fish of École Publique New Diedo said. She equally outlined her fears of contacting cholera due to the dirty environment » there’s Cholera out there probably it’s now that we are are going to contact the desease. We are just pleading on the government to come to our help » Ma Fish added.
Ma fish is just one of the thousands of homes at the neighborhood negatively affected by the waste pollution. Getting another local of the the area who leaves directly opposite the piles of garbage had only tears to shed as she lamented the fact that despite calls made to the competent authorities to come clean up the garbage has been fruitless. The toxic stench meets them at their rooms, they can’t eat, can’t sleep and are left vulnerable to deseases.
While waiting for quick intervention of the powers that be, the locals are left to themselves to bear the unbearable situation.
Juliette M.
