FRANCE 24 report: Brazzaville residents choking under piles of rubbish

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00Every morning as he walks out into the alley,

00:02Christian Koudela finds himself faced with a pile of rubbish.

00:05We're almost two weeks in and now the fire we've set here

00:10is giving off smells that are more than nauseating.

00:13It's painful and disturbing.

00:15Brazzaville, whose inhabitants used to call it the green city

00:18for its cleanliness, is now nearly unrecognizable.

00:21Rubbish is heaped up on the pavements in mounds

00:23that can reach up to several meters high.

00:25The piles of waste are the result of a strike

00:27among rubbish collectors in the city.

00:30We're demanding our rights, our two salaries,

00:32the month of July and the month of August.

00:35That's why we are making these demands.

00:37We are fed up.

00:38We want the company to at least think about us.

00:41We do very hard work.

00:43We work every day until Sunday.

00:44We don't get a rest and we are exposed to illness.

00:49A local association has decided to take the crisis

00:51into its own hands,

00:53trying to make the city air breathable and healthy again.

00:56Equipped with dustbins and shovels,

00:57dozens of its volunteers pick up the rubbish.

01:02It's because we're patriots that we thought it was unacceptable

01:05to live in such a polluted environment.

01:07And that's why we're doing this.

01:12We're doing it not because we expect anything.

01:14We're doing it because we're the children of this country

01:17and we love this country.

01:18No one can love this country better than we do.

01:22But despite the volunteers' best efforts,

01:24Brazzaville is still overflowing with rubbish.

01:26Residents are hoping and praying for a swift end to the crisis.

01:30Discussions between the sanitation company Averda

01:32and its employees are ongoing.

01:34The company's directors declined to answer our questions.

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