Slum fire makes more than a thousand homeless

More than a thousand people were homeless on Thursday after a fire ravaged one of the largest slums in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, the country’s Red Cross said.

The fire broke out on Wednesday night in Susan’s Bay, a seaside slum of corrugated iron houses and salvaged materials near the city center.

About 400 homes were destroyed, said a local resident.

“We are taking stock of the damage for humanitarian aid,” a Sierra Leonean Red Cross official said at the site of the disaster.

An AFP journalist who visited the slum discovered a desolate sight of the remains of smokers where hundreds of people searched for personal effects that had escaped the flames.

A senior police officer from the Eastern Police Division said there were no known deaths.

Some residents lost everything in the fire. The narrow passages of the slum made it impossible for fire trucks to pass. By Saidu BAH (AFP)

“Several people have been injured escaping hell and some children have lost contact with their families, but the police are working hard to find them and reunite them with their families,” the officer said.

A National Fire Service official said the cause of the blaze was unknown.

The narrow, narrow streets of the slum made it impossible for fire trucks to pass to put out the flames, the official said.

“I was working (in) my company when I saw the fire in the slum – when I got home, everything was in ashes,” said resident Ya Marie Kamara.

“I’ve lost everything. We need help now,” she said in tears.

Another resident, Foday Turay, said the blaze was fueled by high winds from the sea and changed direction, hampering efforts to put it out.

Map of Sierra Leone. By Marimé BRUNENGO (AFP)

“About four hundred houses or more are missing. Most of us here are traders. Fortunately, most people were on the move when the fire broke out,” he told AFP. .

“I was at the market when I heard about the fire, so I came back here and had no way to enter my house,” Ya Alimamy Ofinoh said.

“I just picked up my kids and went to a safe place until the fire was out,” she said.

‘Eviscerated’

Freetown City Council tweeted earlier that the slum had been “emptied”.

“The extent of the damage is unknown but thousands of people have probably been affected,” he said.

European Union Ambassador to Sierra Leone Tom Vens said the EU was looking for ways to send aid to the victims.

The fire is the latest disaster to hit Sierra Leone, after a civil war, Ebola and coronavirus outbreaks and a drop in global demand for basic commodities. By Saidu BAH (AFP)

“We will reflect with (the) authorities on the structural measures necessary to reduce the risk of such disasters recurring,” he said on Twitter.

The UN representative in Sierra Leone, Babatunde Ahonsi, visited the site “to assess the extent of the disaster,” his office said.

The former British colony rich in diamonds is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Its economy was ravaged by a civil war from 1991 to 2002 that left 120,000 dead, followed by an Ebola epidemic that ran from 2014 to 2016.

Other blows have come from falling global commodity prices and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.