Freetown residents “traumatised”

A WFP official who visited Freetown yesterday said prices of basic commodities had risen sharply with some items priced 10 times higher than before the crisis, the spokesman said. An estimated 20 percent of the houses in central districts were burned down and an even higher proportion of homes were reported destroyed in the eastern part of the city, the spokesman said. Many affected people are staying with friends or relatives, with up to 40 people sharing one home in some areas, he said. “People are traumatised and in a state of shock,” he added. Meanwhile, news agencies reported today that cases of cholera have started to be reported in Freetown, where health authorities and volunteers continued collecting the bodies of people killed in the conflict and burying the corpses in mass graves.