John Baimba Sesay: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 16 March 2026:
There was a time not long ago when the streets of Freetown began revealing a disturbing and heartbreaking trend: an alarming number of corpses were being found in public spaces.
For any city, such a development is both a humanitarian crisis and a public health emergency. Something had to be done.
Although it had no formal legal mandate to collect corpses, Freetown City Council- FCC stepped in out of necessity. With the knowledge of the Sierra Leone Police, the Council established a burial team that promptly collected the bodies from the streets and ensured they were buried with dignity.
The intervention was driven not by jurisdiction, but by responsibility to public safety and human dignity.
Concerned by the frequency of these deaths, the Mayor wrote to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. She raised the possibility that the deaths could be linked to the growing Kush drug crisis and requested that an investigation be conducted.
In her communication, she clearly explained that FCC’s actions were purely a public health response to an alarming situation.
Instead of encouragement, the response came from the Ministry of Local Government demanding that the Mayor explain the legal mandate under which FCC was collecting corpses. The letter requested evidence of the bodies collected and their causes of death, and even threatened administrative action.
The Mayor complied fully. Detailed records were provided, including the gender of the deceased, dates of collection, locations where the bodies were found, and where they were buried. Photographic evidence was also available if required.
Shortly thereafter, on 1 November 2025, the government issued formal protocols. The public was informed that the responsibility for collecting corpses rested solely with the Sierra Leone Police, who should be contacted through the short code 900.
Under the same protocols, FCC’s role was limited strictly to providing burial space once a corpse was brought to the cemetery.
With the responsibility formally reassigned, FCC disbanded its burial team. The Council no longer maintains the equipment or logistics required for corpse collection: no body bags, no disinfectant, no protective gloves, no fuelled ambulance, and no personnel dedicated to the task.
Today, when a corpse is seen lying unattended on the streets, the question should not be who once stepped in to help, but which institution now carries both the mandate and the responsibility to act.
Equally important is another question we must confront: what caused these deaths in the first place, and what is being done to investigate and address the underlying causes.
This cannot be a roadmap for anyone to shift blame onto the Mayor or her team at Freetown City Council. Rather, we must look honestly at where we were, what actions Freetown City Council took in response to the situation, and who within central government chose to throw dirt instead of supporting a coordinated response thereby disrupting the delivery chain.
What matters now is that we fix the systemic failures that allowed this situation to arise and persist. This is a scar on our collective conscience.
Just two nights ago, another corpse was left at Hastings, right beside the tollgate, for about three days. When I raised the alarm on Facebook, it was removed the very night or by the next day. But we cannot continue this way.
A society that waits for public outcry before acting on matters of basic human dignity must reflect deeply and do better.
May common sense prevail.
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