One of the two cemeteries in Funkia Village, Western Rural District of Sierra Leone was reportedly destroyed by flooding after a heavy down pour of rain in the country’s capital over the weekend.

Awoko reports that the flooding washed away human corpses and coffins and residents in the village blamed it on sand mining and the massive construction of buildings around the waterway.

Lovetta Kamara, who stays close to the cemetery, explained that it was on Sunday morning that they observed that flooding had washed part of the cemetery away- she blamed it on the blockage of water passage and other illegal human activities around the beach.

She furthered that the headman of the village earlier mandated that residents of the village can collect some sand from the beach for domestic use, “but there are people who are conniving with outsiders at night to do large scale mining at the beach.”

Rev. Koker Davies, Headman of Funkia Village, Goderich said the village used to have high tide and that was what occurred over the weekend that affected their cemetery.

He acknowledge the fact that sand mining can be one of the causes but there are other factors that contributed to the incident – “the water is not having a breathing space.”

Davies said they were experiencing flooding before he took over in 2018 and reports have been made to the Ministry of Environment, Office of National Security (ONS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ministry of Lands on the causes of flooding which includes the illegal construction of buildings that disturb the water passage.

He said EPA and the Environment Ministry stopped the illegal construction but the Ministry of Lands requested that he provide documents for the land to stop the construction.

On the area of sand mining, Davis said the district council authorized them to do domestic sand mining on a document that was given to him after he took over, but illegal sand miners are conducting large scale mining at the beach during night hours.

“I don’t have a vehicle, or adequate security to chase out the illegal sand miners at night,” he pointed out.

However, Davies said they sometimes arrest illegal miners with the help of vigilantes that they deploy at night and they were handed over to the police for further investigation.