/ 1 January 2002

Kasbah crumbles, and with it, the heart of Algiers

Centuries of history in the ancient Algiers kasbah are falling away, literally.

Once a sparkling white medina, or Islamic city, perched on a hill above a glistening waterfront, the kasbah has become an overcrowded home with unsteady walls.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) named it a ”world heritage” site in 1992, a nod to the Ottoman-style palaces, mosques, and the remains of a citadel found tucked among other less grand shelters in the densely packed, crime-ridden centre.

The Unesco recognition was expected to unleash a wave of renovation and construction, but some locals may feel it is too little, too late in coming.

”But when, already?” a local resident, Noureddine, sighed.

The aged buildings of the kasbah, wrecked by overuse and neglect, made fragile by time, have begun to crumble down upon its residents. The latest series of accidents occurred at the end of May, when three homes collapsed in the middle of the night, killing three and trapping others beneath a pile of rubble as they slept. A few days later, a woman was killed as another building crashed down on top of her.

”The toll could have been much greater. It was 11 o’clock in the morning and most of the renters had already gone,” said Salim, a neighbour.

An initiative launched last month to improve sanitary and housing conditions in the city has created loans for renovations, especially for buildings in ruin.

With help from the loans, many structures have regained the matte patina that made ”White Algiers” famous, and whitewashed walls once again shine over the turquoise Bay of Algiers.

But Algerian media and residents have been quick to criticise the measure for its limited, decorative scope.

”Renovation is limited to the restoring of building facades… the shiny gloss of the capital,” the Algerian daily La Tribune wrote.

An elderly Algiers resident was not surprised, nor fooled, by the measure. ”These measures don’t suffice. You can’t fix a city by white-washing it,” he said.

”Here, in our city, this kind of thing has become standard. They think it’s enough to cover up problems in order for them to be resolved.”

”In the Casbah,” said another resident, ”the problem is even more enormous, and they don’t even make an effort.”

Worries about building collapse — and frustration with the trash and debris that clog the kasbah?s narrow alleyways — have not abated with renovation efforts.

The last collapse, residents note, occurred in buildings that were not even considered dangerous by government standards.

”The kasbah is falling into ruins,” the Algiers daily L’Expression wrote succinctly.

Fed up with the white-washing, feeling abandoned by the city and Unesco, kasbah residents have also turned blame on the hills and the water coursing beneath them.

While the country is racked by a water shortage, imposing strict rationing measures and raising anger among Algerians, residents complain that water rot has weakened building foundations.

Many suspect that rotten plumbing in their century-old homes, with rusty pipes dripping, has softened the ”toub” walls, made with a mixture of straw and clay.

Others look deep into the Sahel hills, on whose slopes the kasbah sits, for the source of water infiltration.

On a neighbouring hillside, drivers flaunt rationing rules and come to wash their cars in the water that flows naturally from the gutters.

This, and the crumbling of their houses, is proof to residents of the deep roots of their problem.

But without help, the dense maze of kasbah history written into the dirty streets and scaling its ancient palaces will slowly diminish, building by building, into rubble beneath. – Sapa-AFP