Sierra Leone Disabled Allegedly Assaulted And Maltreated by Police Officers After Their Land Was Grabbed in Freetown

The Sierra Leonean disables have shared a horrible encounter they had and went through in 2020 at the hands of the Police Officers. 

According to Them, the former Government of Sierra Leone lead by the APC had given a portion of land at waterloo to the House of Jesus Disables. 

But the UMC Mission met the Government and claimed the land, so the Government then called them and told them of the situation at hand and promised to relocate them elsewhere. 

So, the relocation process was ongoing when the time of the governance for the APC came to an end and the SLPP took power. So, they continued to press on the current government, at the time Dr Dennis Sandy was the Minister of Lands and he gave them a land located at kissy town waterloo, behind Mercy ship building, together with all documents pertaining. 

After that, they were on the process to build a structure where they will transfer, when the SLPP Chairman rural area and an LUC of Waterloo, Mr. Banda Gbla and some councilors within that area came together and grabbed the land that was given to them and sold it to some influential people.  

When the disabled heard of the news from waterloo on the 17th January 2020, that their land has been sold out, their chairman, Ken took them to the place to see whether the rumors were true and to brush the part they might have left for them. 

But when they got there, they found out that the entire land had been occupied by other people who claimed to have bought it. And the caretakers left there to monitor, were gangsters, so they called their owners and informed them that, the disables had come claiming they are the owners of the land. 

They wanted to gain access to the land but these caretakers stopped them from entering, so that resulted into a tussle. 

These caretakers then called Banda Gbla the LUC of Waterloo and when the LUC came, because he had received an order from the higher authority, he did not ask what had happened or how the tussle started and immediately arrested them beating and kicking them at the process. 

The LUC took them to the police station and lock them up. But by then the SLUDI executives were at a meeting with one of their stakeholders in Waterloo, then a call from one of the senior police officers by the name of Gbanda Gbla the LUC saying some of their disabled members are in police detention and that they should be there to bail them out.  

Not knowing their intentions, they all went straight to the police station, and as soon as the police spotted them approaching the police station in large number, they did not ask what they went to do and started beating all of them. 

So, their President Santigie Kargbo went in and informed the LUC to stop his men from beating the disables but the LUC told him that he should be the one to ask the police to stop the beating since he is the one that came with the disables. 

The President then told the LUC that he was the one that called Alie Sesay to come and bail his colleagues and that by then they were in a meeting so after the meeting they just decided to come together. 

The LUC did not believe the President’s statement and immediately called for more reinforcement and beat them mercilessly. Some of them were arrested but some were able to escape from the scene. 

The president and others were arrested and detained and they spent the night in the cell. 

The police made all sorts of accusation against them. They lied that the disables break chairs and glasses and so on, and when those who escaped, went to take medical form from police station for assault, so that they can get treatment, the LUC pass order to all the police stations not to grant them medical form.  

They did not received treatment until when one of their doctor friends who is also disabled, contacted a senior doctor who then treated their wounds. The case was later taken to court and they ended up losing the case. 

“Na so den pass pain pa we n e lef pa we boff. Nor side nor dae for go lay complain because u go to the police, den dae defend den Sef, lie or true ohh, as long na police e complain u dae go lay, den nor d take action” they ended.