Over 300 residents lack drinking water
Citizens of Gewloken in PleeboSodoken Statutory District Maryland County are reportedly drinking from creeks and streams due to lack of safe-drinking water in their community.
Gewlohken town is situated along the Pleebo-Grand Kru highway, the main entrance to the Maryland Oil Palm Plantation (MOPP). Speaking in an interview with The NewDawn in Maryland County over the weekend, the chairman for the community, Alphonso Wilson, says the area has been without safe-drinking water for nearly one year.
He laments that on several occasions, residents of Gewloken had suffered outbreaks of water-borne diseases, including chloral and diarrheal, especially among children. He notes that initially, the community had two pumps built by the Association of Evangelicals of Liberia (AEL) years ago, but they are now down, a situation, which left them with no alternative but to fetch water from creeks and streams to drink.
Chairman Wilson is however calling on humanitarian organizations to come to the aid of his community with a population of 306 residents, including women and children to provide safe drinking water, lamenting that his people risk contracting chloral, diarrheal, typhoid and other sicknesses, particularly during this rainy season.
He recounts that on many occasions, people have been rushed to health centers and diagnosed with chloral, diarrheal, typhoid from drinking unsafe water. “Our drinking water is from the upper part of this creek, because we wash our clothes and take bath to the down part of the creek, so your please come and help us”, he pleads.
By George K. Momo/MarylandCounty-Editing by Jonathan Brownre
