News

By Crispina Cummings 

A resident of Waterloo has been arrested for telling the community, through a radio broadcast, that a certain Alhassan Kargbo is behind the many deaths believed to have been caused by the Ebola virus disease.

Head of media, Inspector Edward Senesie at the 555 Police station in the Western Rural district, said Mohamed Cham had reported that he had caught a man in his early twenties “poisoning his soup”.

Nineteen youths in three communities along the Freetown Peninsular have been arrested and charged to court for allegedly attacking some military and police personnel while protesting the delay in response from the Ebola burial team.

A statement, dated 1 October, 2014 and released by the military, claimed that “the riotous conduct of the youths followed an alleged delay by the burial team in collecting a corpse in their locality. Armed with bottles, knives and other missiles, the youths moved towards the EVD treatment centre at Lakka in order to vandalize it”.

By Bampia James Bundu

Local authorities have claimed that victims of a wind storm in the northern town of Lunsar showed up at the house of the paramount chief demanding compensation for their loss because “a local radio station incited them”.

Paramount Chief Koblo Queen said the affected people had claimed that the surface rents paid to them by the iron ore miner, London Mining,also made provisions for compensation where there was a natural disaster.

By Allieu Sahid Tunkara

Director of the Sierra Leone Postal Services has disclosed plans to join the fight against the Ebola virus disease by using this year’s World Post Day to launch a sustained programme of information dissemination nationwide.

Sammy Koroma said they were planning to launch several activities on October 9, which would include house-to-hose hand delivery of mails carrying messages on Ebola. He said they would also use their mail clerks to collaborate with the Emergency Operations Centre in that regard.

By Crispina Cummings

An international non-governmental organisation in Sierra Leone,Don Bosco Fambul, has collaborated with the ministry of social welfare gender and children’s affairs to provide temporary shelter for children affected by the Ebola outbreak.

Recounting their recent activities in the fight against the disease, director, Lothar Wagner, said they had already set up an interim care center at their Fort Street residence in Freetown to accommodate children who had either lost parents to the Ebola disease or had survived the sickness.

By Mustapha Kamara

UN Women yesterday launched its mainstreaming strategy for Sierra Leone’s Ebola Emergency Unit to help address and prevent the further spread of the hemorrhagic Ebola Virus disease in the country.

At the ceremony in Freetown, the UN’s resident coordinator, McLachlan Karr, said that the Ebola outbreak was a global crisis which had killed thousands of people in a short while.

By Allieu Sahid Tunkara

Freetown City Council yesterday handed over the Allen Town Health centre to community authorities after refurbishment.

One of the community elders who chaired the ceremony, Alhassan Kanu, said the facility had collapsed seven years ago “due to neglect by government”.