"The vegetables rot on the trucks"

Border post in Seleki between Senegal and Gambia (archive image)

The announced catastrophe in Africa as a result of the corona pandemic has not yet materialized. Also because almost all states closed their borders early. In the meantime, however, the economic consequences of the lockdowns are becoming increasingly noticeable. For the first time in decades, the United Nations is assuming that the African continent's economic output will shrink.

The Guinean Lanciné Diané heads a team for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that is supposed to help officials at the Boundou-Fourdou border crossing between Senegal and Guinea with the implementation of the new corona rules. He has his own measure of the health of the economy: the number of trucks passing his border post.

Here he tells how life has changed since traffic came to a standstill.

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Lanciné Diané

“The beginning of March was dramatic. Nobody knew what was going on. These instructions came from one side, those from the other. Total chaos reigned: the vegetables rotted on the back of the trucks, taxi drivers argued with theirs in the parking lot Passengers, how to proceed now, and in the shade of the trees people telephoned desperately with their families.

In the meantime the situation has calmed down. Senegal and Guinea are now allowing strategically important transports - such as food, medicine and fuel - into the country more quickly. The processes have become established; Disinfect your hands, keep your distance, measure your fever.

But overall the traffic has decreased dramatically. Today only around 35 trucks get through here a day. There must have been hundreds in the past. Buses and taxis hardly come either. The number of registered border crossings has fallen by around 90 percent. I can only imagine what that means for our economy. After all, we are on the route between the capitals Dakar and Conakry. This is one of the main trade arteries here in the region.

Many migrants used to get through here. That’s the real reason we at IOM are here. We wanted to get an overview of the migration movements. Most of them moved here in the region, others wanted to go to Europe. Even that hardly exists today .

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Taking temperature measurements at the border crossing: "Some of them are already experienced, especially the truck drivers," says IOM employee Lanciné Diané

All in all, it has become quiet here at the border. The money changers used to be waiting outside, ready to pounce on anyone who had completed the immigration formalities. Women offered peeled oranges, sandwiches, and hard-boiled eggs, and young men with motorbikes waited for hours for passengers. They are all gone.

But smuggling has increased. I was talking to a young smuggler the other day. With his motorcycle he takes people to the other side of the border via secret routes. He said that he was helping very, very many people across the border in this way. He even showed me pictures of himself and his passengers.

This is of course worrying. After all, these are all people who travel in and out of the country untested. People whose whereabouts we do not know and cannot control. It's a risk. On the other hand, we have not yet registered a single Corona case at the border crossing.

Despite the smuggling and illegal border crossings, one thing is certain: the large migration movements towards Europe have weakened enormously. But that's just a snapshot.

The people who leave countries like Guinea, Ivory Coast or Mali are people who see no future in their homeland, who want to get out of eternal poverty. People who feel that they have nothing more to lose.

I think we have to slowly and carefully reopen the borders. Otherwise our economy will stifle. If we can't find a way to live with the virus and people are deprived of their last economic prospects, then soon more of them will be on their way. "

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