Hectares of slums line the creeks of Nigeria’s Port Harcourt, home to tight-knit communities with a population density more than twice that of Manhattan.
The tangle of 50 self-built waterfront settlements made of concrete, wood and corrugated sheets hosts half a million people, many reliant on the polluted creeks for their livelihoods.
Port Harcourt’s communities are caught in a battle over their informal homes after Rivers State Governor Ezenwo Nyesom Wike ordered all the settlements to be demolished.
Wike and state officials have described them as “dens of criminals” that needed cleaning up, offering no compensation for the homes destroyed and no development