Survivors at the recent landslides at Regent and Lumley communities are presently finding it difficult to survive and cope with a lack of sanitation and safe drinking water.
Alhaji Bangura, 46, is a father of five and had leaved at the Pentagon community for the past ten years. Prior to the disaster, they had been surviving on bore holes and streams for drinking and other domestic use. He said residences in both Pentagon and Jah Kingdom communities had been using those bored holes for drinking purposes whiles they had been using downstream for open defecation.
The young man said, “After the disaster, they are finding it difficult to access safe drinking water despite the availability of water containers by WASH consortium partners. Water has not been enough for them as a result of the ongoing registration that had converged more people into their communities.
Alfred Jatta Dumbuya is the Director for Sierra Leone Social Aid Volunteer (SLSAV) specialized WASH said they have installed latrines, water tanks. They are also offering basic hygiene sensitization at Kamayama, Pentagon linking to Jah Kingdom communities. He said the communities are ‘hard-to-reach’ and that the effects of the incident had forced residents down the valley to converge on the hilltops.
He said the disaster had affected and contaminated all the water sources along the communities, which had posed high risk of cholera and other water borne diseases on the affected communities if not timely addressed. He said they are presently trying to prevent open defecation by rehabilitating and construction more latrines and creating dustbins for garbage and hand washing system.
Despite the ongoing water testing activities by officials from the National Laboratory department in the Water Resources Ministry at various epicenters and the daily treatment of water by the Water Resources Ministry though the Water Directorate, the channel through which water passes to reach houses in Freetown are affected along the way as a result of breakages and damage to the pipes which led to leakages which also contaminates pipe borne water.
Despite the Ministry of Water Resources persistence, public reminders on their daily treatment of water but the Ministry of Health and Sanitation is not confortable and unsure about the status of the water. This was demonstrated by a press release put out on Saturday 19 August 2017.
According to the release the Ministry of Health and Sanitation said the recent incident of flooding and landslide in the Western Area has the potential to cause disease outbreak. They went on to point-out that the public should, ‘drink only water collected from a safe source that is treated water tap or well and that the public must always use a latrine for defecation.
The Director of WASH-NET, Musa Ansumana Soko, said at present the status of WASH in the country is challenging with only 67% of the population having access to safe drinking water and 13% improved sanitation quality. He said the situation on the ground is appalling especially so when government was unable to meet the 1% funds allocation as committed five years ago which now elapsing along with the Agenda for Prosperity.
Soko said since 2012, financing of WASH has been challenged because government was unable to allocate equal commitment and also unable to reach immediate target as a result of increased in health outcomes.
MK/23/8/17
By Mohamed Kabba
Twitter @chikakabba
Thursday August 24, 2017.
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