Res Communis

Amnesty International Uses EO Imagery to Show Evidence of Forced Evistions in Chad

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

A new report from Amnesty International uses comparative remotely sensed imagery to show evidence of forced evictions in Chad. Broken Homes, Broken Lives: End Forced Evictions in Chad states that:

Amnesty International has used satellite imagery to illustrate the scale of destruction in some residential neighbourhoods in N’Djamena.

Using commercially available satellite imagery, Amnesty International documented housing demolitions in N’Djamena, Chad, at three points in time: 7 January 2008, 8 November 2008 and 27 January 2009. The images covered eight districts and an area adjacent to N’Djamena international airport. They show the damage caused by the forced evictions. In all, more than 3,700 structures were destroyed in about 385 days. The satellite images supplemented the information gathered in research missions by Amnesty International delegates who visited N’Djamena in May 2008 and May 2009.

The evidence obtained by using satellite imagery and geospatial methodologies paints a distressing picture of the pace of housing demolition in N’Djamena. While the images alone cannot tell us which demolitions were legal and which violated both Chadian and international law, the sheer scale indicates a frightening level of human suffering.