Growing banditry forces traffic to travel in armed convoys

Growing banditry in central Benin has forced vehicles travelling along the main road leading to the north of the country to drive in armed convoys protected by paramilitary gendarmes at night. The problem began in May, when four people were killed in the space of 48 hours by bandits setting up impromptu road blocks on the highway from Cotonou to Malanville on the northern border with Niger. Attacks have continued regularly since then. The early casualties included a Gunter Poppe, German engineer working for the German construction company Dywidag, and his chauffeur. They were shot dead in a hold-up at Seto, 140 km north of the capital on the night of 3 May. Traffic still drives unescorted along the main road by day, although some attacks occur during broad daylight. However, police now escort two convoys every night along the most dangerous 50 km stretch of road, from Bohicon, 115 km north of Cotonou, to Dassa. Residents in the area told IRIN that most of the attacks ocurred the day before big markets in the area, or the day afterwards, when travellers were likely to be carrying large sums of money. The wave of banditry has broken out in a fertile area of Benin, which produces most of the country's food. Academics have linked the violent attacks to a sharp decline in the economy. Denis Amoussou Yeye, a sociologist, said: "You get an upsurge of crime when people lose hope of a better life, either through religion, which is one way out, or at the political and economic level." Prosper Sounouvou, an economics professor at Cotonou polytechnic, pointed an accusing finger at people who were formerly involved in the second hand car trade and transactions to clear goods from the port of Cotonou. Many of the second-hand cars sold in Benin were stolen to order in Nigeria. But following a Nigerian ban on second-hand car imports from Benin, imposed last year, and a security crackdown at the port, many of the people involved in these shady activities had been thrown out of work, Sounouvou told IRIN.