EGC's managing director Frederic Zanklan insisted that "every family was rehoused in relation to how they were when the count was made", adding that it was "nothing to do" with them if families had since grown.

"Here I have to work in other people's fields," he said.

Ibrahima Ba, 60, was equally livid. "We have gone backward in every way," he said.

While still a farmer, today's harvests are nothing like what they were "in my village, the soil was very fertile, we had fresh water and we had no problems".

He called on President Faye and his prime minister to help them "because a foreign country is destroying the life of Senegalese citizens".

AGENCIES VIA XINHUA