By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Over 20,000 persons whose homes were pulled down by previous governments in Guinea have received plots of land to resettle, with some of the victims waiting for 25 years for compensation.
According to Human Rights Watch, the victims were forcibly displaced when the government of former President Alpha Conde demolished the Kaporo-Rails, Kipe 2, Dimesse, and Dar Es Salam neighbourhoods of the capital Conakry between February and May 2019.
The landed property belonged to the state and would be used for official buildings, authorities said.
Under the rule of former President Lansana Conte in 1998, a similar demolition exercise took place in the same area of Conakry.
At a ceremony on Saturday, associations representing the victims received the land deeds for a 258-hectare (638-acre) plot in Wonkifong, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Conakry, an AFP journalist saw.
The land will be managed by the state-owned company SONAPI, which will be responsible for developing the site and rehousing the victims.
“We are taking a concrete step towards healing the wounds of the past for 2,683 households, while laying the foundations for a shared future,” the managing director of SONAPI, Maimouna Laure Mah Barry, said in a statement.
The spokesman for the victims, Samba Sow, said the event marked “the reparation of a 26-year-old injustice for those who were evicted in 1998 and five years for those evicted in 2019.”
“Thousands of homes, schools, markets and places of worship were destroyed in flagrant violation of the laws of our country. The lives of several thousand families have been destroyed,” he added.
Sow called on current head of state, junta leader General Mamady Doumbouya, to set up a compensation fund for the victims.
The ceremony was attended by General Amara Camara, a junta spokesman, who said the president was “resolutely committed to drying the tears of all the sons and daughters of this country.”
The West African state has been ruled by a military junta led by Doumbouya since a coup in September 2021 toppled civilian president Conde.
