By Septimus Senessie in Kono
World Vision Sierra Leone and the UN World Food Programme have donated food and nonfood items to victims of a fire accident at Sawakor Village in Fiama Chiefdom, Kono District. The items, which included cooking utensils, bulgur wheat, beans, cooking oil, clothes and blankets, were distributed to 58 households after a wild fire gutted fifteen houses and rice barns and dozens of sheep, goats, dogs, cats and chickens on 26 January. According to the development facilitator of the Area Development Programme of World Vision Sierra Leone in Fiama, Frances Berewa, the food items were provided by WFP and the nonfoods were provided by World Vision Sierra Leone to provide first aid assistance to the fire victims. She said working in a grassland community her organization had been putting aside a disaster management fund to provide assistance to victims. She said fire accidents were a common occurrence in Fiama Chiefdom. She described the incidents of fire in the chiefdom as “pathetic” saying hundreds of people including newly born babies had been rendered homeless. Berewa told Politico that the only shelter for the victims had been under big trees. She said that they were lobbying other organizations to build permanent structures before the onset of rains. She said that they had formed a committee called Emergency Response Disaster Management Committee (ERDMC) within the chiefdom to sensitise the communities on the prevention of fire through tree planting and maintenance and creation of fire belts around their towns and villages. The victims appealed to government and NGOs to help them with shelter. Sahr Kanda the village headman of Sawakor told Politico that they were homeless with their children and urged government and NGOs to “help restore hope as a homeless man is a hopeless man.” He maintained that the fire had left them in a very precarious state as it happened in a farming season. He said that the fire accident had forced to stop farming “to concentrate on the rebuilding of our burnt houses”. The headman said that a similar fire accident had happened last year burning down ten houses.
