Vanishing Beaches -Hotel Africa Community, Others Disappear Slowly

The Informer (Monrovia)

D Kaihenneh Sengbeh

1 June 2011

Liberia’s coastal lands are being gradually washed away as a result of an unprecedented level of sea erosions that have gnawed several of the country’s beautiful beaches – and the trouble continues.

During the past few years, several of the country’s eye-catching beaches have been swallowed by what locals call the “angry the sea”, with Cece Beach in the once lustrous Hotel Africa Community being among the worst hit.

The shimmering Cece Beach, which formerly pulled thousands of people including tourists on weekend days, is only now a shadow of itself, after several ferocious sea erosions cut a huge slice away and brought down a gigantic storey building, creating in its place a yawning lagoon – getting larger by the day.

Residents of the Hotel Africa Community are now worried that the rest of the area may soon be washed off as there seems to be no force to defy the approaching Atlantic water.

They want government and international partners to come to their rescue as they would soon be left without homes if nothing is done now to arrest the aggressive situation.

The community is named after an imposing international hotel (Hotel Africa) built in the late 1970s to host African leaders during the 1979 Organization of African Unity (OAU) now African Union (AU) conference.

After the OAU conference, the Liberian Government used the hotel to host internal guests and tourists and business tycoons, which provided a revenue base for the country until the civil war in 1989, according to reports.

Today, it is only the skeleton of the once glorious infrastructure that stands overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The building has been systematically looted and scrapped and it, too, faces the threats of the fierce sea erosion like its surrounding communities.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai as well as Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Wood and officials of the Environmental Protection Agency, among others, have on separate occasions decried the level of threat sea erosion, a result of the global climate change, is posing to the coastal plains of Liberia.

The country’s costal land is reportedly 350 square miles, but unverified reports claim the number has dropped as a result of recent sea erosions in Buchanan, Monrovia and Robertsports.

“Pretty soon there will be no more Hotel Africa Community,” said an elderly resident told this writer last Friday, when Public Works Minister Samuel Kofi Woods visited the community to inspect the reconstruction of a c rumbled bridge.

“The sea used to be way over there,” the man calling himself Opuku stated, throwing a stone into the ocean to indicate where the dry land once was. “Now, it has come right here, and tomorrow it will be over there, and our homes will no longer be,” he cried.

Speaking to a local newspaper recently, the leader of the Concerned Youth of the Hotel Africa Community confirmed that several homes have been destroyed by the sea erosion and other houses that are few miles away have also been threatened by the disaster.

The youth leader James T. Koikoi, told the New Republic Newspaper that they are not happy living in the community that has already been threatened by sea erosion, adding that said community will soon be swallowed up by the rushing sea erosion.

According to him, over 500 persons live in the Hotel Africa Community, most of whom moved there right after the Liberian 15 years’ old civil conflict.

Ninety percent of the residents are unemployed and lack financial potency to relocate to areas that are much better than where they find themselves.

The youth chairman then used the occasion to appeal to the Liberian Government for possible relocation, stating that the sea erosion is gradually destroying their homes and they have nowhere to go.

“I am appealing to the Government of Liberia to help and relocate us, because the sea erosion is destroying our homes and the sea is coming; we want to leave this community,” the New Republic quoted him as saying.

He said the only hand pump in the community that is providing safe drinking water has also been threatened by sea erosion, something which he said if the Government of Liberia does not come to their rescue would cause serious problem for them.

“It is unfortunate and that’s why we will be working with the Minister of Land and Mines to see how we can address this erosion problem, a big problem in the country,” Public Works Minister Woods told this writer after he toured and saw the level of damages done at to Cece Beach, and a strait area where the Ocean was thrusting deep into the land.

The strait-the only surviving route to the Cece Beach and communities beyond-will soon be no more, and that community may be cut off.

The Ministry of Lands and Mines, Minister Woods said, is leading a government taskforce to find solution the problem, but said it requires huge resources.

“We will contact them, but they are quite aware and have done some studies on this strait already. Most of the issue now is mobilizing the resources to protect the land from the erosion…I think they are making sure to give it an urgent attention,” the infrastructure minister said.

Like the dying Cece Beach, several communities in Monrovia including New Kru Town and West Point have received their shares of the pie. Significant portions of these seashore communities have disappeared.

Significant segments of communities such as Kru Town, Fanti Town and Vai Town in the seashore capital of Grand Cape Mount County are no more. The situation is even reportedly worse in the Grand Bassa capital of Buchannan City, where several homes and government facilities have been replaced by rushing sea water.

The Superintendent of Grand Bassa County, Julia Duncan Cassell, last November renewed calls to save Buchanan City from sea erosion, in the wake of unrelenting encroachments and gradual reduction and deformation of the City’s size and shape by the Atlantic Ocean.

Tens of thousands of people occupy Buchanan which plays host to headquarters of huge concessionaires including world steel giant AreclorMittal and Buchanan Renewables, a woodchip power producing company.

The bustling city, one of the highly populated in the country, has faced the burnt of sea erosion for the past few years (with several buildings and homes washed away) but things have become even bad, as the global climate change continues unabated.

National Action

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has said her Government is revitalizing the National Disaster Relief Commission to educate the public about disaster risk education — a measure she said would help the public respond more effectively to disasters such as sea erosion.

The Commission has since been established and is seated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

When she opened the 2009 Consultation on Climate Change, Human Rights, Peace and Security (June 2009), the President said climate change constitutes a threat, and called for a vigorous approach to alleviate it.

The President spoke of the threat of rising sea level and beach erosion which continues to affect the coastal terrain of the country.

Liberia, the President said, is losing territory all along its coastline, which serves as home to over 50 percent of the country’s population.

Monrovia, the President pointed out, is almost below sea level and is equally being impacted. She spoke of the need to raise awareness among Liberians about the consequences of their actions relating to the environment as well as the preservation of the country’s ecosystem.

Rescue Mission?

Launching the National Climate Change Steering Committee and Secretariat (NCCSC) in the country last October, Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai stated that climate change remains a serious threat to national development.

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