Aden to be slum-free by 2020 [Archives:2007/1109/Front Page]
By: Ridwan Al-Saqqaf
2020 is the year set by Aden's governor to remove all random construction and provide proper homes to those residents living in slums.
ADEN, Dec.. 4 ) More than a million and a half Yemeni immigrants living in the Gulf at the time were sent home as a consequence of the 1990 Gulf War. Since then, many of those, who hadn't anticipated their return, have been forced to live in shacks in large numbers.
“We feel like refugees in our own country! We've been living in miserable conditions for 17 years,” complained 60-year-old Ahmed Obadi, who lives in a slum in Aden's Al-Mimdara area.
Local authorities estimate that more than 30,000 people live in slums in Aden, barely surviving in desperate conditions where water and sanitation are non-existent.
According to Obadi, the number of slums has increased rapidly over the years due to increasing population and poverty. Such crowding means worse hygiene and more garbage.
Several urban development specialists from Yemen and other Arab countries met in Aden for three days at the end of last month to discuss this issue. The meeting was a follow-up to a regional one that occurred in Cairo in October, which resulted in agreeing on a common urban development strategy for the region.
Hussein Al-Wali, Yemen's deputy minister for General Works and Population, states that the Yemeni government intends to designate YR 75 billion (approximately $3.8 million) to building homes for young and poor families over the next three years.
“We have experts from Jordan who will help us plan development in Aden, Hodeidah and Sana'a governorates. We aim to construct 5,000 residential units within the next 23 years, yielding 217 residential units annually,” Al-Wali noted.
However, skeptical slum inhabitants sneer at such promises, saying they've had enough of “lip service.”
“What do you want from us?” Salman Qaid yelled as his home was being photographed for this story, adding, “Last year, a newspaper interviewed my neighbor, who said some 'big stuff.' The next thing we saw was the police dragging him off to prison. Leave us alone! We'd rather live here than have even these slums destroyed under the pretext of development.” He and 10 of his family members have been living in a slum in Dar Sa'ad in Aden, surviving on occasional daily wages. Additionally, Abdulnoor Muqbil, 40, complains that slum residents have no water or electricity in their homes, which are constructed from cardboard boxes, junk metal and wood.
The Yemeni government has organized the urban development initiative as part of an inclusive strategy to develop Yemen. Such random construction is considered one cause of bad traffic tie-ups, increasing crime and the spread of diseases.
Earlier this year, Aden's governor decreed a ban on such random construction in an attempt to control the influx of slums into the city, but so far, the attempt hasn't been entirely successful, as the number of slum inhabitants has increased.
During last month's meeting in Aden, environmental specialists voiced their concern that such construction definitely will harm the environment and irreversibly damage the city's structure, if not controlled.
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