By Africa 24 news

In the Muslims hold month of Ramadan, prices on basic foodstuffs are soaring up just like other similar holy months in the past.

But this year, it seems to be prices doubling up higher than never before.

Not only are prices on cooking items like palm oil, oil, sugar, flour , fish, onion, etc have gone up highly in March this year in the Ramadan, but also the cost of  rice is very expensive now.

A bag of rice is now sold around Le 900,000 with some kinds of rice already jumped to close to Le 1 million.

This painful situation would always surface when Muslims are fasting. Traders would add up on the prices of vegetables, fruits and food grains like rice, corn pap, rice pap which Muslims needed to bread the fast with.

In most parts of Sierra Leone, Muslims who’re fasting are finding it very hard to break the fasting as food is sometimes not available.

This condition has made some Muslims humanitarian organizations to be helping those who are fasting with light food like bread and drink. DAQVAH Charity Foundation is one of the organizations that has been doing so much for Muslims in Sierras Leone by providing bread and drinks to ‘fasters’ while on vehicles going home. On their Empty Bowl challenge campaign, DAQVAH have been giving food to Muslims passengers to enable them break the fasting. They are doing this through what they refer to as Ramadan Caravan Food Distribution. One such point of contact was at Lumley and Regent Road on March 23, 2024. There some Daqvah members were seeing close to some buses offering food and drink to Muslims.

Other organizations like HMD Charity Sierra Leone which has branches in Uganda, Gambia, Liberia, and Ummah Welfare Trust Sierra Leone whose headquarters is based in United Kingdom have also helping Muslims who are fasting. Ummah has helped many Sierra Leonean Islamic teachers with money and people with food to break the fasting in this holy month.

These charitable organizations have  been helping Muslims with food to eat or dates ( tamarr ), water , juice to break the fasting.

Other organizations are embarking on similar ventures as they go around communities donating bags of rice, bags of onions, gallons of oil, fish, sugar etc to Muslims who are fasting in this hold month of Ramadan.

This year 2024 is 1445 ( Hijrr calendar) of Ramadan Month. The Fasting started on Sunday March 10, 2024.