Each day, wandering silhouettes roam the sidewalks, invest the public gardens, settle on the ground. They speak alone, sometimes howl, often fold up. Their presence, formerly rare and marginal, is today a trivial fact – to the point of providing only resignation or fear.
The inhabitants are silent or whisper. For fear, by fatigue, especially by weariness. “We tried everything. Alert the authorities, challenge elected officials … but nothing moves. We live with anxiety that one day, there is a drama, ”confides a trader, a look riveted on the other side of the street, where a naked man mumbles in front of the void.
The municipality, it gives the impression of having disappeared from the field of action. The local authorities requested several times, did not follow up. A remarkable absence, which many interpret as an admission of helplessness. Social services evoke the glaring lack of means. The argument is known, repeated, almost institutionalized.
But during this time, children learn to turn their eyes, women to accelerate the step, and citizens to adapt to what no one should tolerate. Public space is gradually transformed into a shadow zone, without care, without management, without response.
Local associations sound the alarm. They require specialized reception centers, mobile mental health teams, awareness campaigns. In vain. Because in Sidi Bennour, mental poverty seems to have crossed a red line that no one dares to name.
What this city is experiencing is not a simple news item. It is the symptom of a deeper evil: the progressive erasure of the public authorities in the face of their human responsibilities. A form of silent renunciation, which could well cost dearly if nothing is undertaken.
In Sidi Bennour, the forgotten do not claim the moon. They only ask to be invisible.
