This is the end of the ordeal for the entire population," rejoices the chief of the Ivorian village of Noé, bordering Ghana: closed since Covid-19, the land borders of Ivory Coast have just reopened.
Many residents of this locality will finally be able to reunite with their relatives living nearby in Ghana, whom they have not seen since March 2020 when the borders closed at the start of the pandemic.
"I haven't seen part of my family, nor some of my friends for three years: this afternoon, I'm leaving for Ghana to finally greet them," said Eloukou Yapo, a resident of Noé, with emotion.
"Some residents of Noé even waited at the border" early Thursday morning after it opened, because "they didn't believe it," says this teacher who is also president of the village's youth group.
On the same day, under the immense metal arches located at the ends of the bridge that separates Noé from Elubo, in Ghana, Ghanaians and Ivorians and other West Africans flock in both directions on foot, by car, by bus or by motorcycle.
In less than an hour, three buses of Nigerian travelers crossed the border to go to Abidjan.
In Noé, everyone still has to go through customs checks and Covid tests, but the drivers are smiling, relieved.
Eloukou Yapo says that "you could only cross the border for important events, like funerals, and even for that, you had to 'make arrangements' with the border guards."
The young people of Noah - who represent between 60% and 70% of the village's approximately 5,000 inhabitants - have lived through "very, very complicated" years, according to him, especially professionally.
"Most of them are traders; they go to Ghana to buy goods and resell them here," he explains. If the Ivory Coast-Ghana border—nearly 700 km long—is closed, trade is impossible and income disappears. "Some have switched to driving or construction work."
"When the borders were opened, I danced! It really is a breath of fresh air for us," confirms Adama Madougou Hassan, a trader.
"Dangerous journeys"
Products bought in Ghana "are much cheaper" according to Eloukou Yapo, "so much so that some customers sometimes came from Abidjan", about 175 km west of Noé.
According to its inhabitants, Noé is the Ivorian locality with the most trade with Ghana.
The two peoples also share cultural similarities, and sometimes belong to the same ethnic groups, which facilitates exchanges.
This marks the end of an "ordeal for the entire population," says Nanan Assi Atchan II, chief of the village of Noé. "For three years, some residents risked their lives" on "dangerous journeys" to defy the ban. "They pretended to be fishermen," took a dugout canoe, and "crossed the river," he explains.
Ivory Coast, which borders Ghana, but also Liberia, Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso, has been relatively spared by Covid-19 with around 800 deaths, according to official figures.
For three years, millions of people from these countries living in Ivory Coast had to use clandestine routes to reach their countries of origin and continue trading. And transport prices between Ivory Coast and its neighbors had skyrocketed.
In announcing the reopening of borders on Wednesday, the government had invited "all travellers to now use the official border crossings".
This could be a way to regain control of migration flows, particularly as Ivory Coast faces an influx of refugees from Burkina Faso fleeing jihadist violence in their country. Some 8,700 of them have recently arrived in the north, according to Ivorian authorities.
