A woman uses a rope and a plastic container to draw water from an Olympic-sized pool to wash clothes at the Grande Hotel in Beira on October 12, 2024. (Jinyange Anthony/AFP)
Some 4,000 people living in squalid conditions in the vast shantytown of the once-thriving Grande Hotel in Beira, Mozambique, are hopeful that this month's elections will bring about change in their lives. I'm looking forward to it.
Most election posters on the blackened walls of demolished seaside buildings urge people to vote for Frelimo, the long-ruling socialist party, in the Oct. 9 vote.
Some support the centre-right opposition Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM), which has ruled Beira for the past 20 years.
The results, to be announced in more than a week, are expected to ensure Frelimo continues to rule the impoverished southern African country it has ruled since the end of Portuguese rule half a century ago.
Overlooking the Indian Ocean, the hotel reflects the desperation of Mozambique, where around 75% of its 33 million people live in poverty and the scars of a 16-year civil war are still fresh.
Graffiti is on the crumbling walls, furniture, windows and fixtures are long gone, and grass has grown in the Olympic-sized pool just steps from the ocean.
The people squatting here aspire to a better life.
“We're living in the shadow of what this place once was,” said Tris Anselmo, a 30-something who has lived in the ruins of the hotel most of her life.
“We have been waiting for change for years, and I hope this election brings better opportunities for all of us.”
The hotel and its grand staircase were built in the Art Deco style in the 1950s, when Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony.
It was abandoned by its owners in 1974 after the Portuguese left after a 10-year war led by Frelimo.
Overcrowded spaces increase tensions between residents, and makeshift security systems reflect the ever-present threat of theft.
“We need a home”
Elaria Ribeiro Punte, 56, who gave birth to all three of her children there, said she was struggling with daily life in the building's cramped spaces.
“It's hard to raise children in these conditions, but we're surviving. We need proper housing, not just a promise,” she said.
People live in basements, former cold rooms, and old elevator shafts.
Women tend to fish, rest in hallways, and fetch water from stagnant pools.
Sheer curtains separate rooms and transform the space into a makeshift kitchen or living area.
Fernando Jose, 37, was born here and is currently raising his family here. “I have a wife and kids and I don't make a big deal about it,” he said.
“Jobs are scarce and there is little support. We hope this vote will lead to change.”
The civil war that broke out after independence killed around one million people and displaced millions more, some of whom took refuge in Beira, one of Mozambique's largest cities, about 700 kilometers northeast of the capital, Maputo.
The Marxist Frelimo government used the hotel as a military base when it was embroiled in a civil war by the then-anti-communist Renamo group.
Although officially announced to have ended in 2019, the armed conflict still looms over Mozambique, with hopes of a windfall from the discovery of vast gas deposits in 2010 dashed by jihadist attacks in the north. It is.
Hassanid Alkank, a teenage soccer fan who lives in the ruins of the Grande Hotel, said he dreams of a brighter life as a professional player.
“I love soccer, but I don't have a place to practice. Maybe someday I'll play for a big team and leave this place,” he said.
© Agence France-Presse
