Ghana supports Sierra Leone with over $1m

The Government has supported the people of Sierra Leone with over $1 million worth of relief items and cash following the mudslide that claimed more than 400 lives with 600 people still missing.

Some of the items donated are rain coats, mattresses, blankets, bales of used clothing and plastic items.

Others are powdered milk, sugar, maize, rice, cooking oil, soaps, treated mosquito nets, generators and assorted anti-malarial and pain relief medicines.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia handed over the items to Mr Victor Bockarie Foh, the Vice President of Sierra Leone, on Saturday.

The Vice President said Ghana could not sit aloof while Sierra Leone, with whom it had had very good relations, suffered.

In addition, a team from the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), led by Mr Eric Nana Agyeman-Prempeh, the Acting Director-General, visited Sierra Leone to offer technical assistance and train officials on disaster management.

Government officials say at least 480 bodies have been buried while rescue teams continue the grim work of extracting bodies from tonnes of debris with hopes of finding anyone alive fast fading.

The survivors have been relocated to temporary shelters while efforts are being made to permanently resettle them.

Earlier, Vice President Bawumia met the Sierra Leonean President, Ernest Bai Koroma, and conveyed the sympathy of Ghanaians to their West African compatriots.

He disclosed that some Ghanaians and private organisations were also collecting relief items, which would be donated to the victims.

President Koroma, on his part, revealed that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was among the first leaders to have called to empathise with him and the people after the disaster, saying; “This visit is further evidence of the close relations between Sierra Leone and Ghana”.   

He said: “Our two countries have been supporting each other over the years, most recently during the Ebola outbreak. Your visit today brings hope and advice on how to deal with this disaster, and ways to prevent it in the future. We are most grateful.”

The flood disaster is one of Africa’s worst in living memory, as the mudslide swept away homes on the edge of the national capital, Freetown, on Monday, August 14, 2017, after torrential rains.

Some government officials who accompanied the Vice President included Mr Dominic Nitiwul, Minister of Defense, Mr Ambrose Dery, Minister of the Interior, Mr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Minister of Information, Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, Minister of Aviation; Mr Charles Owiredu, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, and Madam Barbara Asher Ayisi, Deputy Minister of Education.

The delegation has since returned to Accra.

Source: GNA

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