South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday imposed strict confinement for three weeks in his country, the most affected by the coronavirus epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, while Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire have proclaimed the state of emergency with a curfew, measures that are difficult to apply in a continent where going out to work is sometimes a matter of survival.
“National confinement will be in place for twenty-one days […]. It will be imposed from midnight Thursday “Ramaphosa said gravely in a televised speech.
This is to prevent a “human catastrophe of enormous proportions”, he explained.
A total of 402 cases of Covid-19 have so far been confirmed in South Africa, a number “multiplied by six in just eight days,” said the head of state.
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“Without decisive action, the number of people infected will quickly drop from a few hundred to tens of thousands and, within a few weeks, hundreds of thousands. It is an essential decision to save millions of South Africans from the infection”, he explained.
To enforce this total containment, President Ramaphosa decided to resort to the military. And as of Monday afternoon, soldiers were deployed to the economic capital Johannesburg.
After several European and Latin American countries in particular, Africa, the poorest continent on the planet, is gradually adopting containment, a measure intended to save lives but which paralyzes the economy.
Main enemy: indiscipline
In West Africa, two heads of state, the Senegalese Macky Sall and the Ivorian Alassane Ouattara announced on Monday evening similar measures: establishment of the state of emergency and night curfew.
The coronavirus “gain territory” in several Senegalese regions (79 officially registered cases), according to Macky Sall.
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In Ivory Coast (25 cases, no deaths according to the last assessment published on Sunday), a progressive confinement is being put in place, “by geographic areas”. Travel between Abidjan, the economic capital where the majority of cases are concentrated, and the interior of the country will be subject to authorization.
“In this fight against the spread of Covid-19, our main enemy will be indiscipline and non-compliance with prevention instructions”, stressed President Ouattara, calling for “the sacred union”.
Africa has so far been relatively untouched by the pandemic compared to the rest of the world: at least 1,628 cases, including around fifty deaths, have been reported on the continent, against more than 360,000 cases of infection and 16,000 deaths in total on the planet, according to a report drawn up by the AFP from official sources.
But the very weak health services in African countries raise fears that the pandemic could be devastating.
Already effective in Tunisia, Rwanda and Mauritius, containment was also imposed Monday in Lubumbashi (southeast), the economic capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in the two main cities of Madagascar, the capital Antananarivo and Toamasina (East).
What are we going to eat?
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with 200 million inhabitants, which officially registered only 36 cases of coronavirus including one death, asked on Monday the residents of its capital, Abuja, and of its most populated, Lagos, to stay home.
A measure which seems however very difficult to implement in two mega-cities where many inhabitants need to go to work to survive.
“Disperse and go home. For your own good. Don’t come back tomorrow”, had asked the police this Sunday by dispersing the sportsmen and the street vendors posted in front of the national stadium of Surulere, a popular district of the center of Lagos.
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“What are we going to eat, what are our customers going to eat?”, was outraged in response Alice, fruit and vegetable seller. “I pay (my vegetables) on credit, and now I can’t sell them anymore. We need to survive, we can’t stay at home!”
In the northeast, local authorities have banned visits to camps sheltering tens of thousands of people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency.
In Central Africa, President of Gabon Ali Bongo Ondimba announced partial confinement from 7:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., which started on Sunday.
In neighboring Cameroon (56 officially declared cases), “we hope not to achieve a containment of the whole country”said Health Minister Dr Malachie Manaouda on Sunday evening. Internet users claim it however.
Two weeks without work in a city where everything is expensive is a death sentence
Rwanda (17 reported cases) banned this Saturday evening “non-essential displacement”.
“Two weeks without work in a city where everything is expensive is a death sentence”, alarmed Alphonse 29, a motorcycle taxi in the almost deserted capital Kigali.
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In the Horn, Ethiopia announced Monday the closure of its land borders.
Since Friday, the 1.3 million people of Mauritius, some 1,800 km off the east coast of Africa, must also remain confined for 14 days.
In Madagascar, this measure is very complicated to apply in the capital. “I know coronavirus can kill. But if I stay home for a fortnight without working, I die too”, explained a salesman, Jean Naina Rakotomamonjy.
“Partial or total confinement risks having disastrous effects for the African continent”, worries Cameroonian writer Calixthe Beyala, on her Facebook page.
“The most deprived populations will be the first victims, they will starve to death or at least their organism weakened by malnutrition will make them fragile in the face of the virus”, she added, calling to find “emergency strategies that better meet the needs of our peoples”.
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