THE ENVIRONMENT Kissy Brook Accident: National Environment Protection Agency Should Intervene Posted by Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya on Aug 19, 2009, 01:11

The intervention of the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA) is urgently needed at the Kissy Brook community in the eastern part of the city where a heavy rock rolled down on houses built by residents in that community. It could be recalled that on the early morning of Wednesday (presumably at the hours of 1am to 2am) it was reported that four people missed their lives after a rock struck them where they were sleeping. The victims included children.

The rolling down of the rock to the houses was caused due to the heavy down pour of rain since the start of August 2009. The rains have been digging the surroundings of the rock thereby causing landslide and erosion and eventually caused a tragic accident to many people. The present situation now at the Kissy Brook community is very pathetic and is only the intervention of the National Environment Protection Agency and the government of Sierra Leone that will usurp the present dilemma. The victims in this community amounted to more than hundred.

Parents, children etc living in this community are now confused and traumatized. Some of them are even fearing to enter to other houses fearing for the same kind of accident not to repeat it self on them.

Although there have been reports that the people residing at this community have been warned by the Ministry of Lands, Country Planning and the Environment and also with the Sierra Leone Roads Authority, it should not be the stance or the peg that the National Environment Protection Agency should look into before assisting these people. Among the responsibilities of any government is to protect the lives of its citizens but as this tragic accident has taken away the lives of innocent children and adults, it should now be responsibility of the government of Sierra Leone to provide shelter or any good living conditions for those victims of the rolling stone at the Kissy Brook community.

Very recently, the National Environment Protection Agency issued out a public notice informing and urging the general populace of Sierra Leone to report to the Agency wherever they have found environmentally threatened areas in the country. There are many environmentally threatened areas in the country and the city alone has many of these. If one starts to look at the communities in the hill sides overlooking the city on to the Kroo Bay Community and the present Kissy Brook community to name a few in the city. These are places that also need the intervention of the government through the National Environment Protection Agency to whether to relocate them or to find means in which their crisis can be solved. But the one that needs urgent attention is that of the Kissy Brook Community in the eastern part of the city.

The National Environment Protection Agency should not sit at their offices and allow these people to continue to perish while they are pretending that they are doing absolutely very great things to people living closer to environmentally threatened areas. As I have already mentioned earlier, the government of Sierra Leone, the National Environment Protection Agency and any humanitarian organization or individual in the country should stand up and assist in his/her own way to the victims of the last Wednesday incident at the Kissy Brook community.

However, there are many ways in which these people can be assisted. The tragic accident happens during the rainy season and at a time when the global economic crisis is too tough for people especially moderate ones like those who have missed their lives and those seriously injured. Any philanthropists is now needed to assist these people in whether shelter, relocation, wardrobe/gears or a reasonable amount of money so that they can start new lives in other places instead of that environmentally threatened community. We can not only be blaming them for building houses in that community but rather we should find ways in which we can assist the victims so that we can not loose other lives in the country. It is very important to note that any live that is missing in the country, it is valued more than any piece of diamond and as a government, it should not sit and wait while it citizens get missing.

The present plight of victims at the Kissy Brook needs the attention of people who have humanitarian feelings and it is the National Environment Protection Agency that should lead the campaign for these people. If this is not done their lives will continue to suffer with the trauma they have faced.