In Ivory Coast, new demolitions are taking place in a neighborhood near the port of Abidjan.

In 2023 and 2024, a first wave of demolitions in several neighborhoods of the city sparked controversy: tens of thousands of Abidjan residents saw their homes or businesses destroyed by the authorities' bulldozers and many deplored the lack of compensation or relocation.

The Abidjan district, which was leading the operation, indicated that it was targeting precarious neighborhoods built in dangerous areas, in order to avoid loss of life in floods or landslides.

On Tuesday, in the "Vridi 3" district commonly known as "Zimbabwe", whose population is estimated at 40.000 inhabitants, bulldozers arrived at dawn and began the destruction.

By midday on Wednesday, operations had ceased, and residents were searching for their belongings in the rubble, under the watchful eye of security forces, AFP journalists observed.

"When the authorities arrived, I went to put my luggage in the Methodist church. I thought that since it is the house of God, it would be spared, but when I returned, the machine had destroyed everything," laments Prosper Egny, a man in his sixties who has lived in the neighborhood for 40 years.

His medications and administrative documents remained in the rubble.

Like him, Hamid D., a 25-year-old driver, claims he was not formally notified of the operation.

"We weren't given even a minimum amount of time to remove our suitcases. As soon as they arrived, they started breaking things at the same time," laments the 25-year-old driver who "doesn't know where to go."

Demolition work could resume on Friday.

The Port-Bouet town hall, the municipality which houses the Zimbabwe district, which is in the hands of the opposition, deplored the district's "methods" and called for "urgent care" for the homeless population.

In a statement released Tuesday, the Abidjan district asserts that it announced this operation to the populations concerned "several months ago".

"There is a desire in the district to restore order in our cities. Do not forget that one of the primary objectives of these evictions is to save lives," added Amadou Coulibaly, the government spokesperson, on Wednesday.

With six to seven million inhabitants, twice as many as at the end of the 1990s, the metropolis of Abidjan is constantly changing and experiencing an explosion of construction, sometimes in an anarchic way in neighborhoods exposed to deadly floods.