By Akitania Nzally
The community of Youna village in Kombo North, West Coast Region, has made further calls to ask for support for the rehabilitation of their bridge which was submerged during the last month heavy rainfall in the country.
It could be recalled that a heavy rainfall occurred on Saturday 30th July and Sunday 31st July 2022 which led to various damages across the country and the Youna Village was not exempted. However, the damaged bridge serves as the only entrance to the village which is also considered a busy route.
It was reported that due to the downpour, on Monday August 1st, it was a serious that both adults and children had to be assisted to cross the bridge in order to go on their daily routine.
Speaking to The Voice newspaper, Mark Demba, and a youth of Youna village said “we always help people to cross through this path to be honest we need help in reconstructing this bridge”.
The people of this community have not seen any positive response since the incident happened, just a few NRA staffs that brought some rocks and fixed them in some of the holes around the bridge to facilitate the movement of the people and vehicles in and out of the community.
“Apart from the bridge, the community lacks proper road network to facilitate the movement of people to and from the community. The road construction road only stopped at Mariama Kunda which was a big disappointment to the people of Youna because they expected that the road would be constructed in their community as well,” he said.
Mariama Bah, a businesswoman who sells vegetable at the Serrekunda market also explained how she struggles every morning from her house to the market because of the bad road and that the situation gets worst in the evening while going back home.
She noted that drivers would prefer to stop at Mariama Kunda instead of going all the way to Youna village. “We suffer the most during the rainy season, sometimes we would walk from Mariama Kunda to Youna when we don’t have any vehicle going all the way to Youna”, she complained.
“The people of this community call on all relevant stakeholders to help them in reconstructing their bridge and completing the road construction which was stopped at Mariama Kunda,” she further appealed.
