By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Two people, a 31-year old pregnant woman and a 14-year old boy, have drowned in non-operational mining pits at Down Ballop and Bakundu communities respectively in Koidu town, Kono district.
The apparently epileptic pregnant woman, FindaLebbie, drowned on 22 June while the boy, Mohamed BabahFofana, died the following day. This year alone police in the diamond mining district said they had recorded over 15 cases of drowning.
“This figure is from January to date with victims mostly children between ages three and sixteen. Their untimely deaths are always caused by drowning in un-reclaimed artisanal mining pits within the township of Koidu”, they said.
Sobbing, the sister-in-law of the deceased four month pregnant woman, Jennet Turay,said at around 5pm on that day the late woman had gone to cut some potato vines for transplanting close to the pit where she was later found dead.
She said few minutes after she had left, they saw her 4-year-old son testily complaining that her mother had fallen into an abandoned artisanal mining pit and he could not see her again.
“We rushed to scene and saw her pair of shoes and the dress she was wearing but she was nowhere to be found,” Jennet narrated, adding that they immediately called in for the assistance from the community youth who joined the police to extract her remains from beneath the deep steady water.
Jennet told Politico that “she was epileptic but it has taken over ten years without the disease attacking her”.
The boy who drowned on the 23 June, between 5 and 6pm, had told his father that he was going for a lesson. Sayoh Fofana said after they had eaten together, his class four son of the Lutheran Primary School at Tyjan Street, told them that he was going for lesson. But after some time, as was the case with the pregnant woman, they had a call that they boy had drowned in an abandoned artisanal mining pit at Bakundu.
The father of four children, in tears, described his late son “as the most intelligent and clever of his brothers and sisters”.
The newly transferred crime officer at the Tankoro police division, Police Inspector James Keuwulley, said those were huge loses and that “no responsible government will like to see its citizens perish from on such preventable causes”.He confirmed that rate of drowning in the district was alarming, adding that that would not stop happening for as long as the dug-out mining pits were not reclaimed.
He therefore called on the government to reclaimthe mined-out pits in the township and use them for agricultural activities while at the same time preventing it citizens from dying carelessly like that.
Medical officer at the government hospital in Koidu, Dr. Mohamed Sheiku, said the two died of “suffocations.” Their corpses had been handed over to the relatives for burial.
Meanwhile, the customs and traditions of Kono people did not allow for a pregnant woman to be buried with her unborn baby because they believed that it would bring “hardships and reoccurrences”. The dead was then taken to a witch doctor in the Sandor chiefdom to be operated upon and get the bay out after the medical doctor refused to do as requested by the family. They would be buried separately.
(C) Politico 01/07/14
