News

By Mohamed T Massaquoi

The Dutch airline – KLM – has resumed flights to Freetown after a break of 20 years.

Its maiden flight landed at the Freetown International Airport at Lungi at 8:00 PM on Sunday 26 March with 110 passengers on board, among them the KLM West Africa Director, Philippe Barbieri.

By Kemo Cham
Delay in diagnosis and stigma remain the two major factors hindering efforts to control tuberculosis (TB), medical authorities and campaigners say, amid calls for renewed efforts to mobilise against the deadly bacterial disease.
The Ministry of Health and partners say stigmatisation has forced many TB patients to go underground, and sending suspected cases into hiding and refusing to come forward to seek treatment. Consequently, there is a huge number of missing TB cases out there.

By Umaru Fofana

Students of Njala University have been running amok with police in the capital Freetown and in the south-eastern cities of Bo and Kenema as they protest against the continued closure of their college.  

Police in Kenema forcefully dispersed dozens of the students who were processing on the streets carrying placards calling for the resumption of classes. At least three have reportedly been arrested. 

By Mohamed T. Massaquoi

Sierra Leone’s newest political party has ruled out any coalition or alliance with the country’s two oldest and largest.

A founding member of the National Progressive Democrats (NPD) party, Jesmed Foday-Mami Suma says there is no possibility of coalescing with either the ruling All People’s Congress or the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party.

Addressing journalists on Tuesday he said they did not believe in the ideologies of either party which have dominated politics in the country since independence.

By Mohamed Massaquoi

Sierra Leone’s much anticipated nationwide voter registration started on Monday amidst complaints of delay at registration centres and chaotic scenes blamed on insufficient and faulty equipment.
In some cases registration officials also attributed the slowness of the exercise to the “poor sensitisation” of the public.

Some impatient registrants abandoned registration centres after standing in long queues for long hours.

An estimated 3.5 million Sierra Leoneans born on the 7 March 2000 or before will be registered in the next four weeks to be eligible to vote in next year’s presidential, legislative and local council elections.

The National Electoral Commission spokesman, Albert Massaquoi says they have deployed equipment in all 3,300 registration centres across the country for the four-week-long exercise which will be a “joint voter and civil registration process”.

For thousands of students at Njala University their holiday which started in October last year is still on, much to their chagrin and frustration.

The academic year that was to have started in November 2016 is in limbo owing to a long-running sit-down strike by lecturers over pay and conditions.

The President of the Academic Staff Association, Dr Samba Moriba says they feel scorned by the central government which has allegedly refused to even meet with them to discuss their grievances.