KENEMA – For three days, the decomposing body of an unidentified man has lain abandoned in Kenema’s Jebu Ground community, filling the air with a stench so strong residents say it’s making people sick.
Despite repeated pleas on radio call-in shows, neither the Sierra Leone Police, the Ministry of Health, nor the Kenema City Council has acted to remove the corpse.
This scene is no longer rare. Across Sierra Leone, abandoned bodies are becoming a grim fixture—often the young, lost to the street drug Kush, to joblessness, and to the crushing frustration of poverty. They are the victims of a system poisoned by corruption, mismanagement, and neglect.
The rotting body in Jebu Ground is more than a health hazard—it is a symbol of a country decaying in plain sight, while its leaders look the other way.
By Joe Turay
