By Africanews with AP This is Ayetoro, where waves break over concrete bricks, wooden posts and ruined homes. The lives of its residents have been upturned repeatedly as the sea eats into their neighbourhood. Ayetoro, otherwise known as the Happy City, was founded in 1947 as a utopian Christian community.
Victoria Mofeoluwa Arowolo, a retired civil servant, has lived here her whole life. “Ayetoro was like a paradise, a city where everyone lived joyfully, happily, that you will really enjoy living here." But she has been forced to move home three times.
The old community is submerged beneath the waves. “More than two-third of Ayetoro has been claimed by this sea erosion. Where we are is a new settlement, the old Ayetoro has been taken away by the sea and if you look where the sea is now, that is the end of the former Ayetoro.
" “Most of our children now cannot go to school, because the building has been taken away by the sea”, she adds. The remnants of sunken buildings bear the scars of the relentless advance of the sea, which chips away at the shores of the Ondo State community. Thousands of people have left, many others choose to remain.
Stephen Tunlese lost his livelihood when his former clothing shop was claimed by the encroaching waves. Tunlese says he lost an investment of eight million naira, or the equivalent of $5,500, to the sea. “The erosion affected me badly because I lost my house, I lost my shop” which was worth eight million Naira (US$5.
5 thousand in .
