By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Three members of a family of six have perished, after lightening struck their home on Saturday in Kono district, eastern Sierra Leone.
The incident occurred at 39 Gbetuwa Street in the headquarter town of Koidu, killing a woman, her son and her adopted daughter.
The remaining three members of the family, all of them children, were unharmed.
The victims were later identified as Yei Janga, 42 (a petty trader), her 14-year-old son Tamba Jangam (a JSS 1 pupil of the Islamic Secondary School Koidu) and 15-year-old Uniss Baisa an adopted member of the family and a JSS 3 pupil of the Koidu Girls’ Secondary (KGSS).
Madam Jangs's two children who survived are aged 4 and 12.
The third surviving child, four months old, was only temporarily entrusted into the family's care by his mother who went debt collecting.
The incident happened during a heavy downpour characterised by thunderstorm. An eyewitness said the woman was busy in the kitchen located outside the house dishing out their dinner, while Uniss was transferring the dishes into the house.
Adekallay Bangura, a traditional doctor, associated the incident to a curse placed in the family. He alleged that the 42-year-old petty trader mother owed one of her business partners a huge sum of money which she had allegedly failed to pay back.
He explained that after failed attempts at negotiation, the creditor went on to cast a spell on Yei Janga and her family.
The traditional doctor then warned that the family still had a week of grace to repay and remove or face another wrath that would claim the lives of another set of the family.
As a demonstration of popular belief in the interpretation of the traditional healer, neighbours of the victims refrained from touching their corpses.
Consequently, the bodies were left untouched for over 14 hours, until the traditional doctor had performed the ritual before handing them over to family members for burial.
In a dramatic display, the traditional doctor, before performing the ritual on the corpses, requested for a red hen which he ate raw.
A bereaved family member, Finda Mattia, told Politico that two days prior to the fatal incident, they saw signs of it.
With the approval of his father, one of the surviving kids, 12-year-old David Janga, told Politico that the incident occurred at around 6pm as dinner was being dished out.
“I saw a big light in our house followed by a loud sound," he said, nervously.
His father, 53-year-old Kai Janga, a gold miner, was informed about the incident while at the gold mining site in Sandor Chiefdom. In between tears and sobs, he described the death of his family as a big loss.
“I have lost my wife who used to serve as my pillar," he lamented.
In April three people were also killed by lightening in Mile 91, northern Sierra Leone.
Copyright (c) Politico 2016
