News

With an international donors' conference happening today in London to raise funds for fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, a damning report by Save The Children says five Sierra Leoneans contract Ebola every hour.

The organisation warns that the “demand for treatment beds and nurses to halt the rapid spread of Ebola across Sierra Leone is far outstripping supply”.

As the fight against Ebola intensifies with infection rates and deaths spiking, international response is gathering pace.

Just days after an 85-member team of British military medics and engineers arrived to respond to the epidemic, 162 Cuban doctors and nurses will arrive today, according to deputy health minister, Madina Rahman.

She said an advance team had already been here and that the arrival of the bulk today would help bolster the fight to beat back the disease which has claimed over 600 lives.

By Allieu Sahid Tunkara

An OSD officer is being questioned by the Sierra Leone Police for the alleged murder of a certain David Kargbo of Allen Town in Freetown.

Police said the man died last month as a result of a gunshot wound he sustained from the suspect at Ojuku Junction, Allen Town.

By Crispina Cummings 

A resident of Waterloo has been arrested for telling the community, through a radio broadcast, that a certain Alhassan Kargbo is behind the many deaths believed to have been caused by the Ebola virus disease.

Head of media, Inspector Edward Senesie at the 555 Police station in the Western Rural district, said Mohamed Cham had reported that he had caught a man in his early twenties “poisoning his soup”.

Nineteen youths in three communities along the Freetown Peninsular have been arrested and charged to court for allegedly attacking some military and police personnel while protesting the delay in response from the Ebola burial team.

A statement, dated 1 October, 2014 and released by the military, claimed that “the riotous conduct of the youths followed an alleged delay by the burial team in collecting a corpse in their locality. Armed with bottles, knives and other missiles, the youths moved towards the EVD treatment centre at Lakka in order to vandalize it”.

By Bampia James Bundu

Local authorities have claimed that victims of a wind storm in the northern town of Lunsar showed up at the house of the paramount chief demanding compensation for their loss because “a local radio station incited them”.

Paramount Chief Koblo Queen said the affected people had claimed that the surface rents paid to them by the iron ore miner, London Mining,also made provisions for compensation where there was a natural disaster.

By Allieu Sahid Tunkara

Director of the Sierra Leone Postal Services has disclosed plans to join the fight against the Ebola virus disease by using this year’s World Post Day to launch a sustained programme of information dissemination nationwide.

Sammy Koroma said they were planning to launch several activities on October 9, which would include house-to-hose hand delivery of mails carrying messages on Ebola. He said they would also use their mail clerks to collaborate with the Emergency Operations Centre in that regard.