FCC Mayor Rescues Victims of Fire in Freetown

2021 has been one of the worst years in Freetown’s history for outbreaks of fire, predominantly in the City’s informal settlements. There have been at least 15 fires that have required the intervention of either Freetown City Council, or the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA), or both. Even though FCC has been working to respond to these fires, there have been lots of challenges that the Council, Councillors, and individual communities face in providing for those affected by fires. Through a series of engagements and fundraising, friends and family both locally and internationally, donated approximately Le 119m to support victims of the recent fires with a kick start on starting over again.

25 June 2021, Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr went on a site visit to three communities that were affected by recent fires and were in dire need of support to rebuild their homes before the rains started. These are Bowen Street (Wellington), Binkolo (Docks area) and the Leicester Road/Botany communities.

Over the past few months, local engineers engaged community stakeholders to assess the level of damage that was caused by these fires and to see how they can support in the rebuilding of the homes in these communities. Working with community labourers, artisans and staff from the Freetown City Council, the team has worked arduously over the past few months to have these homes completed before the heavy rains take over by the end of June.

At the completion of the project the three communities will benefit from the following:

• Bowen Street Wellington- Building 1,400 sq. ft. complete zinc structure, consisting of bedroom apartments with concrete floors, for fourteen households affected by fire.

• Binkolo Community – Building water and toilet facility

• Leicester Road and Botany Community – Building of a 120 sq.ft. zinc structure, and roofing of an uncompleted mud structure built by the affected victims themselves.

The absence of urban planning, development control, an effective building permit regime and building regulations are contributing factors to these fires. We continue to advocate for these functions to devolved to local councils in accordance with the Local Government Act 2004.

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