August 16, 2021
By Ilyasa Baa
Four years after the country had the worst climate change related disaster at Matormeh in the Western Area, some of those that survived are calling on President Bio to come to their rescue as their condition is getting worse.
Matormeh Community Welfare Manager, Thomas Magonna has said they are facing difficulties with daily survival as some of the survivors depend only on gardening for the upkeep of their families. He said due to the Covid pandemic and its related effects, their condition needs intervention.
He said they were promised in 2017 that they would be given package continually, to help them out but expressed that the package came only once when some of them benefited from the allocation of LE 2,175,000 for one year rentage. He said in 2019 during the second anniversary of the disaster, President Bio assured them that they would have their package from government.
Gbassay Marrah, a plasas seller recounted that life has become more difficult for her as the bread winner who lost five relatives to the disaster.
Isatu Sesay told A-Z newspaper that she lost her first and second son together with her mother to the disaster noting that she has to sell plasas in the market to make ends meet for a family of nine surviving members. She said she was not fortunate to secure space at Crossing Mile Six where a good number were relocated after the disaster.
It could be recalled that Sierra Leoneans woke up on 14th August, 2017 seeing massive destructions of lives and properties, the death toll was estimated at one thousand one hundred and a lot unaccounted for.
Environmentalists have blamed bad planning and land grabbing as part of the factors responsible for the mudslide. The area, they claim, is not meant for people to dwell but should be reserved as a protected forest area. From our observation, people are still residing in that area although some trees have been planted there. The government and other good-will institutions had made considerable interventions to ameliorate the sufferings faced by those that survived the disaster.