Ivory Coast reopens land borders closed since 2020

Ivory Coast will reopen its land borders on Wednesday evening, closed since March 2020 and the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government spokesman introduced Wednesday after the Council of Ministers.

“The Council adopted a decree opening the land borders of Côte d’Ivoire,” stated Amadou Coulibaly, including that they’d be reopened “at midnight”.

Côte d’Ivoire had closed its land, sea and air borders on 22 March 2020, when the entire world was barricaded in opposition to the pandemic.

Whereas the ocean and air borders reopened after just a few months, the land borders remained closed.

Côte d’Ivoire borders Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana. Tens of millions of individuals from these international locations dwelling on Ivorian soil needed to take again roads to their residence international locations.

“We at the moment are answerable for the clandestine transit routes, we invite all travellers to make use of the official routes any longer,” Coulibaly stated.

Côte d’Ivoire had been comparatively spared by the Covid-19 pandemic with about 800 deaths, in accordance with official figures.

Final month, the Nationwide Safety Council, chaired by Head of State Alassane Ouattara, welcomed the “glorious outcomes recorded within the combat in opposition to Covid-19 since 2020” and introduced the gradual lifting of the measures supplied for beneath the state of well being emergency.