Coronavirus in Madagascar: Antananarivo and Tamatave confined, between growls and difficulties

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Three new cases of coronavirus were announced this Friday March 27 by the Malagasy authorities. A total of 26 people are infected on the Big Island. Since Monday, containment measures and a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. have been implemented in Analamanga, the region where the capital Antananarivo is located, but also in Tamatave, where the country's main port is located.

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With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Laetitia Bezain

Since the announcement of the confinement, the city has faced a demonstration of pedicab shooters unhappy at not being able to work. The demonstration degenerated into scuffles with the police and attempted looting. Difficult for many Tamatavians to respect the measures taken by the authorities, explains Yvan Fabius Soufaly, an entrepreneur very active in the associative life of Tamatave.

" From 6 am, everyone goes out to the market, everywhere, until noon, to work and do their usual activities ," he says. People don't understand. They are told not to leave their homes, not to work when they are hungry. They buy their food today with the money they will earn today. So if they can't work, they have nothing, like the rickshaw shooters for example. Usually, without confinement, it's already difficult. So with containment, I don't know where we're going. "

Residents suffer the double pain of not being able to work and having to cope with the dizzying rise in food prices , said Dinah, a teacher.

" For example, before the arrival of the coronavirus, a kilo of tomatoes cost 1,200 ariary (0.30 euros) , now it costs 4,000 ariary ," she explains. So I use less. Sometimes I don't eat in the evening. I eat half a jar of rice a day, because it's expensive. "

In addition, 21 people returning from countries affected by the coronavirus and having to respect quarantine in Tamatave remain " untraceable or unreachable ", said the authorities.

► Read also: Madagascar: hunger or the risk of contagion, the dilemma of vulnerable populations

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• Coronavirus
• Madagascar
• Containment

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