By Sorie Ibrahim Kanu
The time has come for our govt and the world to know how the inhabitants of the Walla Rice Growing Communities in Sierra Leone have bee suffering to get clean and pure drinking water!
I am doing this write-up to showcase on what is happening to the people of the WALLA regions, places that are not motorabke from time immemorial! This has caused development in the region to be zero, as the supposed to be officials hardly visit such communities to study the problems facing such people.
As living human beings, we all know how vitally important drinking water is. It’s ironical for people living on the banks of fresh water rivers, such as the Great Scarces, Little Scareces, Rokel Rivers, painstakingly suffering to get drinkable water. In the early 70s, our people used to drink directly from the rivers without any risk of health hazards. Sadly, that natural gift from Allah has long gone and no longer there!
The massive deforestation and the use of chemical fertilizers have contributed in the deadly pollution of our rivers, a phenomenon that left the water of the rivers, undrinkable.
The people of Konta Walla in particular have been relying on rain water to drink during the wet season. While during the dry season, women and children have to walk for nearly 3 mile to fetch water from shallow wells, infested with thirsty frogs and toads! The people have to use crude means to purify such water by either boiling or sheiving water with white pieces of cloths to remove impurities!
It is an unabated life struggle for sustenance under such perilous state of contracting numerous waterborne diseases, a situation that rendered most of our people suffering for various diseases, which they normally associated to witchcraft and voodoo!
We, the concerned sons and daughters of the region are forwarding the endless life struggle of the people of Walla in search of pure drinking water. We appeal to the govt of H. E. president Bio and his able ministry of water resources to deflect the ministry’s attention on the urgent need of drinkable water by the Walla Communities. These hardworking, rice growing people deserve the attention of the govt more than those unproductive consumers clamouring in Freetown and other cities in Sierra Leone!
