Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported over the weekend that nearly one thousand Senegalese citizens continue to live in temporary shelters, with no clear prospect of relocation to permanent housing, a decade after coastal floods struck the Langue de Barbarie peninsula and destroyed their homes.
HRW’s climate displacement researcher, Erica Bower, said: “A decade of living in uncertainty is an unacceptable reality for families already traumatised by climate displacement…The Senegalese government should provide families with the bare minimum for Khar Yalla to feel like home again: permanent permits to regularise their tenure.”
The organisation noted that Senegalese families displaced by coastal floods initially lived in tents for several months before authorities relocated them to a site called Khar Yalla, a neighbourhood in the city of Saint Louis, northern Senegal. Authorities granted these families temporary occupation permits pending a permanent solution, given that the mentioned site is not suitable for permanent habitation due to flood risks and a lack of essential services. However, after ten years, displaced citizens have not been provided with alternative housing while the next flood season approaches, which is contrary to their right to a permanent and adequate housing.
Senegal is obliged under international human rights law to protect and fulfill people’s right to adequate housing, which is recognised as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.
