Ivory Coast Reopens Land Borders Closed Since 2020

Ivory Coast Government says it has reopened its land borders on Wednesday night, closed since March 2020 and the start of Covid-19.

Government spokesman Amadou Coulibaly made the announced Wednesday after the Council of Ministers, saying they have adopted a decree opening the land borders of Côte d’Ivoire.

They had closed its land, sea and air borders on 22 March 2020, when the whole world was in the throes of Covid-19 protocols but while the sea and air borders reopened after a few months, the land borders remained closed.

Côte d’Ivoire shares borders with Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana and millions of people from these countries living on Ivorian soil had to take back roads to their home countries.

Already last month, the National Security Council announced a gradual lifting of these preventive measures with the aim to put an end to clandestine crossings and redirect travelers to official crossings.

Because until then, people were using unsupervised tracks, according to several residents of Ouangolodougou, a town near the border with Burkina Faso.

But as Spokesman Amadou Coulibaly explained, this will allow a redirection of these flows of people to the official crossings, in order to ensure better control of migratory flows

The reopening of land borders is also a relief for carriers whose activities have drastically reduced in recent years.

Côte d’Ivoire had been relatively spared by the Covid-19 pandemic with about 800 deaths, according to official figures.

Last month, the National Security Council, chaired by Head of State Alassane Ouattara, welcomed the “excellent results recorded in the fight against Covid-19 since 2020” and announced the gradual lifting of the measures provided for under the state of health emergency.