Emergency Aid after the Fire in the Slum of Freetown
The day before yesterday there was another devastating fire in the slum of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Thousands of the simple dwellings, which are tightly packed in the slums, have burned down in a very short time.
Many thousands of people, families and children have lost their homes.
The Susan Bay slum is a collection of simple dwellings built close together out of wooden planks, tarps, and tin. It is estimated that about 500,000 people live densely packed in the slums of Freetown. Now thousands of them are affected by the fire. The day after the fire, people walk through the remains in search of their few belongings. There is complete chaos, with children mostly wandering around unprotected, having been separated from their parents in the turmoil of the fire. The people in the slums therefore quickly need our help.
Cap Anamur seeks children separated from their families by chaos
Our staff immediately went to the disaster site yesterday to search for children who are now in urgent need of protection and safe shelter. We took one girl into our shelter that very night because she had not found her mother in the chaos of the fire.
Our street children’s shelter, Pikin Paddy, was located in the immediate vicinity of the slums until the fall of 2020. At that time we moved to a shelter outside the slums – so our street children are safe. But many children still living in the slums now need our help.
Cap Anamur helps provide basic services
Now we need to act quickly and provide people with materials with which they can build a temporary shelters. We have to provide basic services because the families have lost everything. Therefore, we are already distributing water and food packages. We need to help the people, as they were already struggling with hunger and deprivation before the fire and now their situation has worsened significantly.
The people in the slums need help fast!
Support our emergency aid in Sierra Leone now, so that the people – and especially the children – receive help quickly.