The coronavirus, a health and economic disaster for the inhabitants of Kibera

Text by: RFI Follow

In Kenya, the situation is particularly worrying in disadvantaged neighborhoods where promiscuity and poverty could worsen the situation of the coronavirus. Kibera is the largest slum in the country. Some say that over a million people live there on an average of $ 1 a day. The arrival of Covid-19 is a disaster for this disadvantaged population.

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With our correspondent in Nairobi, Sébastien Németh

Issaka Matoke runs the clipper through the hair of one of his few clients of the day. He has been working as a hairdresser in Kibera for five years and he has never seen such a situation. He only has two clients a day. And some are uncomfortable because he has to touch them. However, he has no money to buy soap or gloves. One party therefore refuses to stay. If this continues, Issaka Matoke will have to close, because he will no longer be able to pay his $ 60 monthly rent.

In the shop opposite, butcher Jeffrey Mogo knows the same insoluble equation, fewer customers and inflation. As people are unemployed, locals buy less meat, the price of which has risen. The Masai who come to sell cattle in the slum are hampered by partial containment and dams around Nairobi. In the end, a lot of unsold meat that he has to throw away. Jeffrey Mogo would like to buy a freezer. But at 400 dollars, it is overpriced.

These traders observe the situation with calm mixed with fatality, but for others, anger is mounting. Wycleaf Lubana is unemployed. He accuses the government of looking away. He says he feels abandoned. Kibera received no help. “  Elected officials are invisible. People come in waiting for death,  ”he says. He is asking for water, food, medicine for the population, otherwise people will behave like animals fighting for their lives. 

Many fear that if the crisis continues, hunger will drive the people of Kibera to commit crimes in order to survive .

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• Coronavirus
• Kenya

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