How dilapidated Africa’s rail routes are?

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In the Democratic Republic of the Congo a freight train derailed – a lot of blind passengers died. The accident is, unfortunately, not an isolated case. The causes for the backlog of repairs on the Track are varied.

This Boy has the courage, with the “Lunatic Train” by Kenya to travel (archive)

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is not easy to get from one city to the other – as a stowaway on a freight train ride, is for many people everyday. A sudden end, had derailed such a trip early Thursday morning, as in the province of Tanganyika a freight train.

Many people in the train accident killed. The number of the dead among the blind passengers different information circulating: First, the speech is from 50 Victims, some reports in the media, even from up to 100 dead. But the Congolese Minister for humanitarian Affairs, Steve Mbikayi, corrected in the DW-interview: “we have reports of ten dead and 30 Wounded.” In the confusion, it was concluded that, “because some of the Wounded had been confused with the dead”.

Ailing rail network, lack of infrastructure

To the cause of the disaster Mbikayi says: “It came as a result of Overload to this derailment.” The Minister believed: “The blind passengers were certainly illegal immigrants, the move to this kind of way.” The DR Congo has only a few transport systems, the rail network and trains are completely out of date. Helmut Asche, Professor of African studies at the University of Mainz, said in an interview with DW: “basically, it’s a wonder that it is a functioning part of the Congo at all, still lines.” There’s often no other opportunity would also be shared with freight trains for the passenger traffic.

After this freight train disaster in April, 2019 in Ethiopia were reported only material damage

The Congolese Journalist Marcel Ngoy says that this accident is due to the ailing condition of the railroad and the wagons. He calls the new Congolese government to take Action. Prime Minister Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba himself was head of the SNCC (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo), the Congolese railway company. “Ilunkamba knows more about the state-of-the-art technology, the condition of the locomotives and even the whole equipment, there is,” says Ngoy. The very old railway tracks would need to be repaired urgently, says the Journalist and warns of a further deterioration in October: “I believe that we must be with the beginning of the rainy season, be very careful, otherwise the railway will increase catastrophes.”

Steam engines were in South Africa 20 years ago, are still a familiar sight

The majority of tracks date from the colonial period

Only in March had come in the province of Kasai, 34 people died when a freight train with the blind passengers, was derailed on a bridge over the river Luembe. It was a 52-year-old train, which may carry passengers would have. But also other countries in sub-Saharan Africa are familiar with the Problem: In Cameroon, for example, many remember the railway accident of Éséka, the called in October 2016, almost 80 deaths.

The Africa-expert Helmut ash explains this by saying that the iron had been the stepchild Railways on the continent always among the transport systems. The majority of tracks date from the colonial period. “They were also not particularly useful, because they were usually targeted only to bring raw materials from the interior of the old colonies to the port,” says ash. And according to the independence you have often allow you to expire. Even more he criticizes, however, the Western donor Nations that had invested either in new railway systems or the entertainment of the old: “you never want to invest, because they did not believe the African governments basically agreed to operate any public transport systems, neat and of the ideology were driven, If at all, then this would need to be able to the private sector.”

In the 1960s, mainly White and travelled in the luxury class, the “Tansam”railway through Tanzania and Zambia

Rail versus road

Not only today, it is China, which invested on the continent in the Rail. By the end of the 60s beginning of the 70s years of the people’s Republic of China funded the Tansam-Bahn, which runs from Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi and in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. The Western donor countries, however, have promoted the construction of roads, says ash. And thus also the Development of other planned rail networks prevented. As an example, ash is called a project in the early 1980s in Burkina Faso: The then-President Thomas Sankara wanted to extend the existing railway from Abidjan (ivory coast) to Ouagadougou: “Namely, to the neighboring country of Niger. Since they didn’t arrive until today – basically because of the massive resistance of the Western donors that prefer to rely on the road.”

Even today, it is mainly China that invests in the African rail network – as the 2016 had opened the railway from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to Djibouti, or the new single track across Kenya, along a colonial railway line, for which, due to their disastrous state long ago earned the nickname “Lunatic Train” (crazy-train) through the set. The first section between Mombasa and Nairobi is since 2017, in a few years, trains are scheduled to travel to Malaba in Uganda.

Instruction in a new diesel locomotive on the route Nairobi-Mombasa

The investments are, but only selectively. “The Congo is a sense that there are no terrestrial East-West connection in Africa,” says Helmut ash. “You come to Africa nowhere – and not in the Congo, right in the centre of the continent – with any means of transport is plausible and reasonably well mannered, from West to East.” Such corridors, it was only in southern Africa. To change this, forth would have to be a determination to invest in such a project a couple of billion dollars, says Africa expert. In the present Discussion, he could not recognize this but.

Cooperation: Henri Fotso

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Journey into the Unknown? Chinese Railways in Africa