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Residents of Lower Personage, a community in Kissy in the east of Freetown, have appealed to the government and the humanitarian organizations to help them construct drainages so as to prevent flooding from occurring in the community.
This came by, as a clarion call as the country runs fast into the rainy season and expecting heavy pour with the time.
As was reported by the 24 Hours Bloggers, Rashid Turay, an elder of the community maintained that, due to lack of proper drainages in the community, the rain disturbs them most and destroys their properties in the process for which they need an urgent attention.
“Flooding takes place in this community every rainy season. Recently, we lost most of our valuable property, and many of our houses were damaged,” he said.
“Sometimes, we don’t go to sleep at night when it’s raining, fearing that our houses will collapse and cover us while asleep. We are not safe here, but we don’t have any other place to go. So we are appealing to the government and other humanitarian organizations to help us with drainages in order to make the community safer for us.”
He further disclosed that due to lack of public toilet in the community, people usually defecate in the water which they usually fetch for bathing and laundering.
“We are living in the slum area. We don’t have any public toilet here. Some of the residents usually defecate in their rubbers at night, thus empting them into the water which could use for laundering and bathing. That is very bad for our health,” he summed up.
A trader in the community, Mariatu Kamara, reveals that recently she had lost her goods and money worth six million Leones after a heavy rain fall which caused flooding.
“After the flooding has taken place, half part of my house was collapsed. My goods and money were all carried away by the water. Presently, I am dwelling with one of my friends in her house. I have no hope now where I could get back my money to start my business,” she said.
Kamara added that they are always paying Le5,000 if they wanted to access pure drinking water.
“To access drinking water, we will walk a very long distance. Some of children used to stay in the street from morning till noon just to fetch water. And that is very bad for our girl children. We are calling on the government to help us with a public toilet, sources of water and drainage,” she concluded.
