Press Release
The Tonkolili District Descendants Association (TODDA) has today expressed concern over the recent spate of violence in Tonkolili district, northern Sierra Leone, especially in the township of KEMEDUGU, and we are calling on our people to exercise restraint.
We would like to stress that Tonkolili District Descendants Association is non political and non partisan. It is a community based organization operating predominantly in the Tonkolili district. It seeks to improve the standard of health, welfare and education of the people of Tonkolili specifically and Sierra Leone in general. It seeks to promote better cooperation, consciousness and unity between the people of Tonkolili and all Sierra Leoneans in and out of the country.
We urge the government to carry out an investigation into last week’s incident at Kemedugu as soon as possible.
Please note that the people of Tonkolili district are more united than ever and we are fully ready to cooperate with the government and other stakeholders in matters concerning the general welfare of our people.
TODDA is committed to work with the government and any existing development organization which seeks to help rebuild our district and help create a brighter future for our people.
Abubakar Kamara
Chairman
TODDA
0044 79308 29335
tonkolilidistrictd@yahoo.com
Photo: Abu Bakar Kamara, TODDA chairman.
Background
From Awoko newspaper, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
We are dying because of iron ore – Kemedugu people cry
The over 500 residents of Kemedugu in the Tonkolil district northern Sierra Leone last Thursday and Friday fled into nearby bushes, and are still there, following a heavy police raid in the town that still continues. A visit to the town shows it in a complete GHOST state resembling the aftermath of a rebel invasion, save that there were no deaths. There were just around one dozen still in the town who are children and the elderly who are too sick to run.
It follows the activity of the iron ore mining company African Minerals Limited (AML) which the people say they are opposed to in its latest form. Speaking to this press from his hideout in the bush, the Town Chief Musa Turay said he and his townspeople decided to flee because of “police brutality”. He said the police were indiscriminately beating his people, arresting them and firing gunshots.
Abu Bakarr Conteh, a resident of the town still holding out there, said that since last Thursday, the entire townspeople had gone into hiding into the bushes. He said it followed the arrival to the town of armed police officers who came chasing them all over the place. He said he was not sure what the state of those in the bushes was and called for help. “We are suffering because of iron ore in our community” he said. A point echoed by a lady also still holed out in the town as she says she cannot move. They also called for food aid.
Conteh accused African Minerals of taking their land forcefully without “our desired compensation and we have seen no benefit since they came here to mine”.
He said AML went to start work on a water dam for their mining activity on a plot situated in their town. He said as well as being the place they farm on, the plot has their only source of clean drinking water, as well as being their “sacred bush”. He said they demanded that the company should feed them for as long as their mining activity was going on in the area, as well as build them schools, a proper medical facility and other social services which he said the company refused to do but later sent in bulldozers to start work on the plot.
African Minerals have refused to comment on the issue, and several calls put through to the police landed on barren land.
Earlier, the Member of Parliament for the area Alie Sankoh told this reporter that the situation was caused by Kemedugu youth whom he said attacked workers of African Minerals who had gone to survey a piece of land the company wanted for a dam and the people “had agreed to give to them”. Two of them, foreigners, now free, were held by the youth, said the MP. He said the youth also burned a drilling rig belonging to the company.
The latest incident at Kemedugu follows similar ones in Kono and Lunsar, where some youth are aggrieved and have protested to show it, over the mining activities of Koidu Holdings and London Mining Company.
By Umaru Fofana just back from Kemedugu
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