(Feature)
By: Mohamed Sahr
Kumrabai Ferry, a village not known by many Sierra Leoneans which is located in Tonkolili District, twelve (12) kilometres away from Mile 91 in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone is believed to be the place where the long-existing peace the country is enjoying for the past two and half decades was borne between the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) headed by late Foday Sankoh together with his interim Chairman Issa Sesay and the Force Commander of United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) Lieutenant General Daniel Ishmael Opande.
Though the meeting was supposed to be a turning point in the entire peace action that resulted in the deployment of (UNAMSIL) troops across the country and subsequent disarmament of all combatants, hence the Constructed Peace Monument at the heart of the village symbolizes the key contributions made by the two parties. However, in the present day, residents from this village have been highly neglected as well undergone acute suffering ranging from lack of proper medical care, poor road facilities, lack of water facilities, schools and hygiene among others. In fact, many of the homes are on the brink of collapse without conscious support from either the government, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) or other private institutions who are expected to provide some of these basic amenities for them to express themselves.
It is not a novelty that this historic tourist attraction place is going into extinction of which no prominence is accorded to the people as a result of shared reasons best known to the authorities-in-charge.
To better understand the plights of the people, a team of journalists from Minority Rights Group International and Media Reform Coordinating Group Sierra Leone visited Kumrabai Ferry to know how life has been treating the locals. Talking to the village Chief who witnessed the peace talk in a confined mosque, 64-year-old Pa. Abdulai Kamara recalled that on 8th December 2000, the then late President Ahmed Tejan Kabba who was the custodian of peace for Sierra Leone promised that every seating president must pay homage to Kumrabai Ferry as a show of peace, patriotism, love and gratitude to the nation. Since then, his promise has just been a fairy tale without putting it into action for both the past and present presidents of Sierra Leone.
“Even though we are the breadbasket of peace, we are not concerned about how was struggled to attain it; For me, it is a failure and disappointment on their part,” Pa. Kamara mentioned.
Maseray Tholley, a mother of four children feels the greatest pain at every spell of her life. As a mother, her source of livelihood depends on farming. She works tirelessly on the farm to ensure that her children are fed. Many a time during the pregnancy of her first and second child, she walked eight miles away from her village to access medical care. Most often she gets exhausted from the long walk. She can’t afford money to book a motorbike as the only means of transportation. She admits that many of the women have undergone miscarriages due to the long walk and poor medical care. This alone serves as a clear call for Kumrabai to have a Community Health Centre.
With all of the efforts made by the Central for Disease Control (CDC) to strengthen Sierra Leone’s laboratory network in 2014 and offering training to laboratory technicians at the Central Public Health Reference Laboratory, the country is still struggling to stand its ground in terms of healthcare functions in most of the villages, especially in Kumrabai Ferry. Out of 1,000 live births over 13 mothers, it is reported that 111 children under five dies. A report established by the Central for Disease Control and Prevention in 2022.
Fair enough, this scaling number has recorded Sierra Leone as having the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Therefore, in order to address this prevalence around the issue of preventing death among children under the age of five, CDC has helped to establish the Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance Network (CHAMPS). Notwithstanding, despite all the collaborative efforts with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, yet still Kumrabai Ferry finds it difficult to access proper medical care while children are dying, whiles women are facing the risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth.
The problem of accessing basic education for the children of Kumrabai Ferry has literally been a serious-bitter pill to swallow. This bane has crucified many young people to be dropouts as well heightened the illiteracy rate in the Kumrabai community. The 21% budgetary allocation of President Bio’s Free Quality Education has not yielded any impact on the children of Kumrabai Ferry but rather become child farmers and motorbike riders. Few of these children who are tempted to attain basic education walk 12 miles every day from Kumrabai Ferry to their school. They wake up in the early hours of 5:00 am to 6:00 am in the morning to go to school. This has been a huge challenge for both the parents and the children, especially during the rainy season.
The aspects of proper hygiene, water facility and good roads are combined problems the people of Kumrabai Ferry are experiencing. These challenges have turned on their burners with people being exposed to diseases and some unhygienic conditions.
Mohamed Sesay, one of the elders of Kumrabai Ferry admits that the only source of water they have access to is the mining stream waste at the foot of the village. The same mining stream water is used for most of their domestic like cooking, and laundry.
“We even drink the water without purifying,” Sesay affirmed.
They believe these challenges could be solved if the government, NGOs and other private institutions come to their aid by providing the necessary basic amenities to augment their livelihoods. They called on the government to transit their plights into a success story as well make amends for them and their future generation.
