Sierra Leone Floods sweep children away to their death
In the last 48 hours torrential rain and floods have swept away children and their homes in Sierra Leone. Bodies are still being found. As if Ebola wasn’t hard enough to deal with, its people face a fresh challenge that brings some of the world’s poorest people to their knees.
Katherine Henshaw, Home Leone’s SL Operations Director, is in the centre of the storm and said “I have never seen anything like it, people are in a state of panic and have been looting. They are really afraid, there are waterfalls and waves of water washing away people’s houses leaving so many homeless. People have lost everything. Small children have been swept away and died near my house.”
Katherine is now at the national stadium which is open for the homeless to find refuge, commerce is closed as people face another state of emergency declared by President Ernest Bai Koroma. All people have been requested to stay at home. Immediate needs are for disinfectant as the concern about cholera is great. We have £1,000 in our emergency fund and Katherine is discussing with officials how best to spend it.
Freetown, is a city where most people live in slums and on less than £2 per day. The dreadful leaky shacks are home to thousands, a place where death comes early. In 2014, an EU report recognised that 280,000 homes were needed for Freetown alone, yet with so many challenges low cost or affordable housing is not in the national budget. The only low cost housing initiative in place is us and we hope to start building homes in November.
Less than 6% of homes have flush toilets and 1 in 5 sleep in a room with 10 or more people. The urgency to bring help to this country could not be more critical.
Home Leone today launches an appeal to help the flood victims at https://mydonate.bt.com/events/sierraleonefloodappeal
children dying in Sierra Leone flood disaster