Reply #4: FEATURE-Equatorial Guinea's oil boom leaves poor behind [View All]

Source: Reuters

By Estelle Shirbon

MALABO, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Marisa knows she is living in Africa's new oil-rich Eldorado but that hasn't helped her find the cash to buy shoes for her six children.

Like many in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny central African backwater where large offshore deposits of crude have brought sudden wealth, Marisa is as poor as she was before the oil boom.

"My life hasn't changed," said the 41-year-old, who scrapes a living from selling dried fish by the side of the road on the outskirts of Malabo, the capital.

"I know there's a lot of money coming from oil but it doesn't come to people like us," she said, gesturing to three of her children who were playing barefoot in the dirt.
more
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L0620779.htm