By Newman Anthony Levey in Bo
It was a chaotic scene in Baomahun Village in Valuania Chiefdom, Southern Sierra Leone, last Monday 15th June, as residents placed in quarantine went on the rampage.
They said they were protesting neglect by the District Covid-19 Response Committee (DEOC) which they accused of failing to provide them food after restricting their movement.
The residents who were placed under quarantine two days earlier - Saturday 13th June - took the opportunity to move out of the quarantine home when a surveillance team went in to collect two people who had tested positive for Covid-19.
Eyewitness accounts say some of the angry residents jumped into the vehicle the surveillance officers came with, demanding that they too be carried along.
Detective Joseph Andrew Muada Kpaka, Crime Officer at Baomahun, confirmed to Politico that the residents were protesting for lack of food. He said they stormed the home of the Town Chief and took away his chairs, and then headed for the Community Health Center where they destroyed the windows of the hospital its recentlt installed hand washing station. In a bizarre move, the police officer noted, the rampaging youths went on to confront the Community Health Officer (CHO), touched him as though to expose him to the virus. Kpaka said the protesters did same to the lab technician.
The Crime Officer however said that nobody was injured during the protest, noting that a police officer's phone was taken away by the protesters who claimed that the officer had taken their photo.
The DEOC denied claims by the residents that they didn’t have enough food. Its spokesperson, Francess Mummy Jabaty, however acknowledged that other condiments they needed to prepare their food weren’t available, and she said that that’s because they were not aware of that.
"We took food to them. They received it, but the necessary items they needed they never made it known to us until when they (surveillance team) went to collect two people from among them, then nine others jumped into the ambulance," Jabaty explained.
According to the DEOC spokesman, a total of 29 people were quarantined in three households in the community. All of them were housed in their homes. She said there were plans to take them to government facilities, including a secondary school. She however noted that the DEOC had resolved to relocate them to a hotel in Bo, in light of the planned reopening of schools at the beginning of next month.
The Member of Parliament for the area, Joseph Bash Kamara, told Politico that he had bought food and condiments which by Tuesday they would have taken to Baomahun to help support the quarantine process.
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