December 11, 2015 By Victoria Saffa
Some 578 flood victims that were relocated to Kwama community in the Six Mile area have raised grave concern about what they say is their deprivation because of the absence of medical facility, water supply and food in their new settlement.
Speaking to Concord Times on Tuesday at the newly built community, Public Relation Officer Abdul Rahman Cole said that before they were relocated to the camp President Ernest Bai Koroma had promised that his government would provide them with basic needs.
He said that since their relocation on 6 November this year, they have had to grapple with serious challenges such as the lack of a medical facility, adding that when a child suddenly fell ill few days recently they had to take him to a nearby clinic which had no nurses on duty that night.
“We have been in this camp for about one month now without work and even the supply we received was only rice, oil and cooking pots, without water. We are really deprived and we have sat in the camp watching over each other without doing anything,” he lamented.
Camp Manager, Jusu Gobeh, said that when the victims relocated to the newly built area they were provided with food stuff, adding that although there is a water tank in the camp, the Sierra Leone Water Company had failed to supply water in the tank, which is a major challenge to the new inhabitants.
He added that the camp lacks medical facility, but the Red Cross had contacted a nearby clinic and expressed willingness to render free medical service to victims.
In early September this year Freetown was hit by a massive flood that destroyed homes and properties worth million of Leones. Six people also lost their lives and dozens more were made homeless as a result. The government in response took the victims to the national stadium and Brima Atouga mini-stadium respectively.
Some of them were them relocated to the new settlement built with zinc, locally known as ‘pan-body’.