Art

Where Have All The People Gone?
Ghost Towns of Africa

Published

August 27, 2012

Ghost towns often present themselves in my imagination as the domain of the West – cracked desert floors accepting the decay of dry wooden saloons, with the denizens of Deadwood cursing at me from other dimensions. But ghost towns are a global phenomenon, and each region of the world boasts its own houses of forgotten history. In Africa, the desert has followed revolutions to swallow up the cancer of colonialism, leaving its grandeur tarnished and exposing the rot at its center. The colonial capital of Côte d’Ivoire, Grand-Bassam, was abandoned by the French in 1896, and has sat ever since as a memorial to the destroyed peoples and erased cultures that suffered under an evil power. Kolmanskop was founded by the blood diamond trade before the term was coined, and it’s German settlers reveled in their wealth until the desert healed it’s mined wounds and dried up their source of wealth. Long before the invaders came, Chinguetti sat in the Sahara desert, home to one of the many enlightened medieval libraries that flourished in the African continent while their European counterparts wallowed in illiterate bliss. Civil war has also ravaged towns, destroying everything in its path and leaving a wasteland of negativity and death in its wake. Towns like Paoua and Birao became ghost towns as recently as 2005 to 2007, when war raged in the Central African Republic. These places has an energy that can’t be felt in these photos, and have histories that far outweigh the ghost towns of the Wild West. After the jump, take a look at some abandoned towns of Africa…

Paoua, Central African Republic