S.Leone in count of amputees, disabled beggars
FREETOWN (AFP) - Sierra Leone's goverment is carrying out a national survey of the disabled beggars who crowd the streets, many of them amputees left over from the west African nation's brutal civil conflict.
They hope the six-month survey, launched in early May, will enable the authorities to find a solution for beggars such as Sullay Turay, forced onto the streets after his village was attacked and right arm chopped off by rebels.
"The arm was amputated by rebels when they attacked Pujehun (south) in 1999, burning over 100 huts and killing many civilians," he told AFP.
"It is an incident I don't want to remember."
Social Welfare Minister Dennis Sandi says the government is seeking accurate data on the number of disabled beggars.
"We want to change their plight and the goal is to take them off the streets. At the end of the survey, the report will be sent to President Ernest Koroma for action," he said.
Director for Data Management in the Ministry of Social welfare, Mohamed Kallon said "the blind, lepers, the deaf and dumb, amputees and war wounded are being targeted."
Rebels used the horror tactic of crudely chopping off limbs to sow terror during one of Africa's most bloody conflicts, leaving one of the world's poorest countries, with a crushing social burden of thousands of amputees.
Lamin Sesay, a once prosperous farmer in the agriculturally rich Kailahun district, 300 miles (180 kilometres) east of the capital, dexterously whips out a cigarette with his remaining hand as he tells his story.
While ploughing his cocoa farm in 2001, he fell into a rebel ambush, was tortured and had his left arm crudely amputated while his entire farm was set ablaze and his four tractors destroyed.
Left for dead, he was rescued by a medical team from the International Red Cross and flown to the capital where he was hospitalised for six months.
"After my discharge, I was penniless and had to sell my farm at a pittance and returned to Freetown to beg for my living," he says.
"This is why I am delighted that the government is now focusing on our plight to see how we could be helped and provided for."
Lilian Cassel of the NGO, Children's Forum, said disabled beggars operate mainly in large numbers in the main cities and diamond-mining areas.
The child rights advocate said they are "guided in their mission by under-aged children mostly under-aged girls who should be attending school."
Sierra Leonean motorists often protest to local municipalities about the harassment they face from beggars while driving.
"They are a nuisance and the sooner they are taken off the streets, the better," said Sarian Koroma, a doctor in the capital.
The decade-long civil war, in which thousands lost their lives, destroying the economy and infrastructure, has left goverment with a hefty task of reconstruction in a nation where one in four peple lives in extreme poverty.
Hailed for its democratic governance and attempts to crack down on corruption, Sierra Leone has attracted major investments in mining, agriculture and oil exploration.
© 2011 AFP