Côte d’Ivoire, which registered the first coronavirus death on Wednesday in sub-Saharan Africa, was to close its borders from this weekend, as is Burkina Faso, where four deaths have been recorded, and where a curfew has been instituted from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.
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Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa with 200 million inhabitants, strongly tightened its measures on Saturday against the pandemic, in particular by imposing the partial closure of public places and two international airports. Lagos, a megalopolis of 20 million inhabitants with an extremely dense population, had already adopted strict protection measures, by ordering the closure of all bars, restaurants, night clubs on Friday evening, with “immediate effect”.
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“We want to pray”
But these provisions promise to be extremely difficult to put in place in a city where the vast majority of the population depends on the informal economy and where religious gatherings, in the church or in the mosque, sometimes attract tens of thousands of people. “We want to pray, the corona is not here, it is the whites who brought it to us”, Judith, a young woman in a Sunday dress, told AFP on Sunday, while the pastor of the Celestia church of Christ in Makoko, a slum in Lagos, was still trying to disperse his followers.
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The government of Senegal, where nearly 60 cases have been listed, also wanted to be firm on Saturday, dismissing “all tolerance” regarding the ban on rallies. The governor of Dakar closed mosques in the region on Thursday, but collective prayers were held there on Friday.
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In Zimbabwe, a southern African country on its knees after two decades of economic crisis, President Emmerson Mnangagwa this week declared a national disaster and announced the closure of schools. Gatherings of more than 100 people are prohibited. But the government denounced Sunday the irresponsibility of many faithful who flocked to churches in Harare, despite this ban.
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