In June 2020, the four-year-old Azizat was swept to her death during a flash flood in her family compound in Papa Ashafa, Lagos State, Nigeria. She fell into a rushing drainage channel, carried off by the floodwater, while her neighbours watched in horror as the little child disappeared. The severity of the disaster was not only due to natural hazards but mainly because drainage channels in Lagos have often been blocked by waste. Azizat’s death highlighted how the mismanagement of waste in ...
