At the edge of the village of Akakro, near the town of Bongouanou (halfway between Abidjan and Bouaké in the Ivory Coast), Alou lives chained to a dead trunk. This young man in his 20’s, who refuses to wear clothes, is one of thousands of mentally ill Africans, who are chained or hold
prisoners with a leg in a heavy block until the end of their life, only because they are considered as « lunatics »
En Afrique de l’ouest, mais pas seulement, les malades mentaux sont enchaînés ou retenus prisonniers plusieurs années durant, souvent jusqu’à la fin de leur vie. Sous la pression de « prophètes » de sectes locales, certaines familles peuvent verser le tiers de leur salaire pour qu’ils enchaînent le malade. Il est aussi fréquent, pour « chasser les mauvais esprits », que les patients, souvent schizophrènes, soient fouettés.
In ouest africa, but not only, mentally ill persons are either tied up or kept prisoner for years on end, often until the last days of their life. Under pressure by « prophets » of local sects, certain families pay out as much as one third of their monthly salaries to the self-proclaimed « prophet » to keep the mentally ill individual in chains. Another frequent practice « to chase away evil spirits » means that patients, many of them schizophrenics, are whipped.
At the edge of the same village of Akakro, another mentally ill man chained up to a tree, Brou.At the edge of the same village of Akakro, another mentally ill man chained up to a tree, Brou.At the edge of the same village of Akakro, another mentally ill man chained up to a tree, Adjoua. He is still covered with a sheet and a plastic after rainA detail of the chain with which Alou, a young mentally hill man from the Ivory Coast, is held linked to a dead trunkDetail of the chain with which Pacume, a mentally ill man from the Ivory Coast, is linked to a treeGrégoire Ahongbonon and his friends from the association Saint Camille raise Jérémi N’Agussan in their truck. He had been held « in the wood » for a fortnight. They will drive him to their Nimbo Center for mentally ill people, in Bouaké, where many of these « lunatics » who were held prisoners
of chains or of the wood are rehabilitated.Once put into the wooden block, the foot is held thanks to an iron armature.In the Nimbo Center, in Bouaké, mentally ill Jérémi N’Agussan is taken out of the wooden block in which he had been held because he was considered as a « lunatic ».In a village located a few kilometers North of Bouaké (which is 300km North-West of Abidjan, the capital city of the Ivory Coast), Jérémi N’Agussan is a victim of another traditional practice affecting mentally ill people. He is « in the wood », meaning one of his legs is held in a wooden block by an iron armature.Once he has been taken out of the wooden block in which he had been held because he was considered as a « lunatic », mentally ill JÈrÈmi N’Agussan must be carried to the washing place, as he is still too weak to walkA mentally ill patient of the Nimbo Center of the association Saint Camille in BouakÈ has just been a victim of an epilepsy attack. In these centers, the most frequent pathology is schizophreniaAfter he has been shaven and washed, mentally ill Jérémi N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood », can smile again and pulls a face.The first gestures of a recovered freedom: mentally ill Jérémi
N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood » and was rescued by the association Saint Camille in Bouaké, is totally shaven and washed with much soap in the Nimbo Center.The first gestures of a recovered freedom: mentally ill JÈrÈmi N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood » and was rescued by the association Saint Camille in Bouaké, is totally shaven and washed with much soap in the Nimbo Center.The first gestures of a recovered freedom: mentally ill Jérémi
N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood » and was rescued by the association Saint Camille in Bouaké, is totally shaven and washed with much soap in the Nimbo Center.The first gestures of a recovered freedom: mentally ill Jérémi
N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood » and was rescued by the association Saint Camille in Bouaké, is totally shaven and washed with much soap in the Nimbo Center.After he has been shaven and washed, mentally ill JÈrÈmi N’Agussan, who had been held « in the wood », can at last enjoy a true mealMentally ill patients in the Nimbo Center, one of the two centers for mentally ill patients of the association Saint Camille in Bouaké.Mentally ill patients in the Nimbo Center.Mentally ill patients in the Nimbo Center, one of the two centers for mentally ill patients of the association Saint Camille in Bouaké.One of the hundreds of mentally ill people treated by the association Saint Camille of Grégoire Ahongbonon in his two centers in Bouaké, the Nimbo one (here) and the South oneMentally ill patients in the South Center of the association Saint Camille in Bouaké.The South Center, one of the two centers for mentally ill patients of the association Saint Camille in BouakÈ, has a small church, in which patients meet and pray, but where they also happen to sleep.One of the dormitories of the South Center, one of the two centers for mentally ill patients of the association Saint Camille in Bouaké.
« …et
puis ces images bouleversantes, qui me hantent depuis que je les ai vues,
d’hommes enchaînés à des troncs – oui, des jambes à des troncs, ou passées dans
le trou d’un tronc, ou l’image terrible d’une jambe que l’on dirait coulée dans
le bois d’un tronc comme dans un béton, toutes les modalités possibles de
l’attachement d’un homme à la pierre d’un tronc et de son bois. Ce sont tes
images les plus fortes, cher Alexis… Tu sais, je te l’ai dit, un soir, à
Sarajevo, ce que je tiens pour le plus grand scandale en ce monde : ce
moment où, dans un corps, on mutile et
tente de faire disparaître cette lueur intime et ultime qu’est la lumière d’un
visage humilié. Et tu sais, par voie de conséquence, à quoi tient, selon moi,
la grandeur du journalisme – tu sais que la littérature, quand elle se fait
journaliste, ne devrait rien être d’autre que la revanche des visages sur cette
mort sans nombre, sans nom et, donc, sans visage qu’est la mort infligée par
les grandes barbaries modernes…J’ai vu tant de supposés témoins se repaître de
la mort des autres que je suis heureux de pouvoir saluer ces autres
témoignages, les tiens : instantanés de mort et de vie ;
conversations muettes avec des survivants ; photos comme des bouées
lancées à des inhumanisés ; ces images désespérantes et qui sont, en même
temps, des leçons de vie. »
« …and then these shattering
images, which have been haunting me ever since I saw them, of men chained to
trunks – yes, legs bound to trunks or feet through the hole in the wood, or the
terrible image of a leg that looks as if cast in the wood like concrete, all
the possible ways to chain a man to the stone of a trunk and its wood. These
are your strongest images, dear Alexis…You know, I told you, one night, in
Sarajevo, what I hold for the greatest scandal in this world: the moment when,
in a body, one mutilates and tries to obliterate this intimate, ultimate glow
which the light of a humiliated face is…And,
consequently, you know what, according to me, makes the greatness of journalism
– you know that literature, when it turns journalist, should be nothing but the
revenge of faces on this death without number, without name and, thus, without
face that is death inflicted by the great modern barbarities…I have seen so
many so-called witnesses wallow in the death of others that I am happy to be
able to salute these other testimonies, yours: snap shots of death and life;
silent conversations with survivors; photos like lifesavers thrown to those
treated inhumanely; these depressing images which are, at the same time, as
many lessons in life.
