By Ragan M. Conteh

The Freetown City Council (FCC) Mayor, Yvonne Aki Sawyer has written a letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs AIG (Rtd) Morie Lengor Esq., on Gloucester Street, Freetown concerning the alarming disposition of corpses on the streets of the capital on daily basis.

She said she is compelled to draw the immediate attention of the minister to the alarming increase in the number of corpses being found on the streets of Freetown which are, anecdotally, linked to the consumption of Kush. She stated that although there is no direct reference to this function in the Local Government Act 2022, Freetown City Council has historically taken responsibility for providing a pauper’s burial for the destitute who would occasionally die on the streets of the city.

Mayor Aki Sawyer highlighted that since 2022 there has been a growing number of such deaths, which have now moved from being occasional to happening almost daily. She stressed that the frequency with which corpses are being collected from the streets by Freetown City Council is neither natural nor acceptable and constitutes a matter of urgent public concern.

As of 13 August 2025, the Mayor disclosed that their records indicated that 142 corpses had been collected by Freetown City Council since the beginning of the year.

She emphasized that of these, 136 were males and 6 females.

She informed that from that date to 11 September

2025, less than one month later, a further 32 bodies have been collected, of which 31 were males and 1 female.

She explained that the overwhelming majority of these corpses are young people, and the situation is deeply troubling.

She stated that the frequency of collections has necessitated the establishment of a burial team at Freetown City Council that has to be provided with gloves, disinfectants, masks and body bags and a fueled vehicle.

The Mayor said this is an unbudgeted expenditure on the council’s already constrained finances.

She said that, yet, while the financial implications of this situation are unwelcome, what is of greater concern to her is that there is a moral and societal imperative to address this unprecedented and totally unacceptable situation.

Honorable Minister, Mayor Sawyer revealed, this phenomenon cannot be met with silence, adding that it demands a coordinated and urgent inquiry into the underlying causes of these deaths and the implementation of decisive measures to curb the growing loss of young lives in our city.

“I therefore respectfully request that government take immediate and concerted action to address this crisis,” she pleaded.

She further assured that the Freetown City Council is available for engagement and collaboration will have no alternative.

The Mayor threatened that if a due consideration is not implemented the FCC will suspend the collection of these corpses.

“Freetown City Council cannot continue to collect and bury our youth in silence,” she concluded