Nimba County: Glarlay Road Deplorable

The deplorable road conditions between the Toweh Town in Tappita District and Glarlay Community in Zogeh District in Nimba County at the border with the Ivory Coast continue to keep Liberians in that part of the country in abject poverty.

As a result of the bad road conditions, Glarlay and other towns within that community are reachable only by four-wheel vehicles, preferably Toyota Land Cruiser Jeeps and motor bikes. Residents of the area told the New Dawn-Liberia recently during a visit that for years now, the road to Glarlay has not been rehabilitated.

They further told the New Dawn-Liberia that the road linking the Glarlay Community and Butuo is also impassable, emphasizing that the it has become completely impossible for vehicles to ply that route. This paper could not visit that road.

The bad road conditions are noticeable between Sorlay and karnwehn, as well as Etipea and other towns toward Glarlay. Despite its remoteness from the rest of Nimba County, the bad road situation has made trade and commerce, Medicare and other basic social services impossible.

They said as a result of the Ivorian refugee crisis, the people of that part of Zogeh District have been benefitting from low-scale Medicare and basic social services, including hand-pumps, toilets, skills training programs, as well as a child-friendly center offered by the Center for Justice and Peace Studies, Don Bosco Homes and Carits-Gbarnga in partnership with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development for or CAFOD based in Britain.

According to residents of the area, the CJPS, DBH and Caritas-Gbarnga have been working and caring for Ivorian refugees in the community- a project from which they have immensely benefitted.

“If our government officials, superintendent, Development superintendent and other people had attempted travelling on this road to visit us here in Glarlay, they would have known what we are going through here. Because the road is so bad, it is only the bikes that we depend on at very high fares to go to Toweh Town or Gray to the clinic and to buy,” a former school principal told this paper.