Cameroon
In the coastal city of Douala a funeral is being held for Bryan Achou*, whose body was pulled from the Mediterranean and returned to his family less than a year ago.
Friends and relatives commiserate about his fate. “He’s a child from my neighbourhood. In less than two weeks, we lost two children: one was in the ocean between Turkey and Greece, the other was in Tunisia,” said one woman. “Really, before 2035, this country will have been emptied of its citizens,” another mourner said.
This is a reference to the government’s new development paper Cameroon vision 2035, an outline of plans by the president, the 90-year-old autocrat Paul Biya, to revitalise his ailing, conflict-ridden country. Judging by the resignation in the reactions to the remark, no one here believes it will succeed. There have been so many plans since Biya came to power in 1982.
Those gathered here
