Displaced children and women are in the majority at the stadium shelter
By Joseph Lamin Kamara
There is no definite time yet for the Sierra Leone government to relocate victims of recent flooding in the capital, said Abdulai Bayraytay, head of Communications Pillar of the Flood Victims response committee.
Mr Bayraytay said on Monday that government was still trying to secure a space for the relocation of the thousands of victims somewhere on the outskirts of the capital Freetown.
“But we cannot peg a definite time now for the relocation,” he told Politico in an interview at the national stadium.
He said they were still considering Mile 6, near Waterloo, which they had earlier identified, but they were also thinking of Fire Mambo, both on the east end outskirts of Freetown.
The flooding, which happened in Freetown on Wednesday, September 16, claimed many lives and destroyed several homes in slums especially in the Freetown coastal areas. About 12 people were reported to have died as a result, and about 4,000 people displaced, according to UNICEF.
Since the flooding, UNICEF and other international agencies have been helping provide medical care and support for education to the victims.
Flooding usually occurs in Freetown and other parts of the country during the rainy season, but the one in September has been the worst in many years, according to official sources.
A day after the disaster government evacuated the victims to the national stadium at Brookfields in the west of the capital and the Brima Atouga Mini stadium in the east.
The issue of slum dwelling in coastal Freetown has been a controversial one, with government accused of refusing to move people from Susan’s and Kroo bays for political reasons. It has also been accused of maintaining street trading on the main streets of the Freetown central business district for the same reasons.
But Mr Bayraytay said the slum dwellers had refused to leave to places government had been offering before the devastating flooding.
“Some moved, some remained, some returned. Government has warned them not to go to those places,” stated the government spokesman.
He also argued that the incident was “a national disaster”, and dismissed the allegation that President Ernest Bai Kromoma had feared losing votes for his All People's Congress party by removing people from disaster prone communities.
The flood communications head blamed the incident on climate change which he said was caused by felling of forest trees and destruction of hills and mountains, an argument President Koroma had earlier advanced.
However, the civil society has been condemning contracts between government and foreign investment companies operating in oil palm plantation and others.
The legal aid group NAMATI and the conflict resolution body Search For Common Ground say many foreign agricultural companies have been offered immeasurable acreages of lands and they have begun operations without following environmental protocols.
Meanwhile, Abdulai Bayraytay, who is also the director of communications in the office the Government Spokesman, said they were happy that many of the victims had expressed willingness to be relocated.
Duba Sesay, who was living and selling clothes at Susan’s Bay before the flooding, said she was ready to be relocated.
“We are only now waiting for government. Whatever they say, we are willing to go,” she said.
The 29-year-old single mother of two had spent five years at Susan’s Bay and she had been among those who had remained in the dangerous communities despite less severe floodings.
“We were there and floodings occurred, but we did not leave because they were not very severe. But this one – I have never seen it before,” she explained.
“If government gives us a place around Waterloo, as we are hearing, it will be better,” Mohamed Sesay, another victim from Kanikay in the east end of Freetown, told Politico earlier on Sunday.
Sesay said sleeping on empty foam mattresses in an open space and queuing for food was undignified to him and others who used to provide food for themselves and their families.
Food is provided three times daily for the victims and basic hygiene procedures are being followed to prevent transmission of Ebola.
(C) Politico 13/10/15
