4 Comments 
The Freetown City Council (FCC) has provided the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs (MLGCA) with data supporting Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr’s claim that it collected 220 corpses from the city’s streets between January 1 and October 8, 2025.
However, following a ministry inquiry into the Council’s legal authority for the retrievals, the FCC has announced the immediate suspension of the service.
The Council’s response, dated October 20 and addressed to Permanent Secretary Bai M. Thuray, included a detailed spreadsheet listing the date, location, gender, and burial disposition for each of the 220 cases. According to the data, 50 of the deceased were claimed by relatives, while the FCC buried the remaining 170.
The FCC’s report was issued after the MLGCA demanded verifiable evidence for the Mayor’s public statement linking the deaths to the consumption of kush, a synthetic drug. While the FCC did not provide the specific post-mortem data requested, it offered to assist the Ministry in locating remains should it engage a pathologist.
In its correspondence, the FCC highlighted the dramatic increase in street deaths. Mayor Aki-Sawyerr noted that annual collections from 2020 to 2023 were fewer than 50, a number that has now escalated to happening “almost daily.”
In a previous letter from September, the Mayor called the situation “neither natural nor acceptable” and a “matter of urgent public concern,” noting the majority of the deceased were young males.
The decision to halt the collection service came directly from the MLGCA’s query about the FCC’s “source of authority” for the retrievals. The Council acknowledged that while the function is not explicitly outlined in the Local Government Act 2022, it has historically provided pauper’s burials for the destitute.
The FCC has now requested that the MLGCA’s Permanent Secretary provide contact details for the authority to which corpses should be reported going forward.
Thank you, FCC, for stepping in. Corpses laying in the street, not an ideal circumstance. Hope a remedy can be found soonest as this drug scourage will continue.
I think the FCC should not suspended the collection of dead body in the street so when you have stop who will collect them now.
I think that mainly because of politics.
Politics is not helping the progress of our nation😒🥺🇸🇱💎✅
Job weldon by city council and to all government officials, but also be reminded that your salary is from tax payers money and you are not doing the nation a favour so remember your commitment.
Kind regards.