Iyesatu Turay, who lives in a sprawling district of corrugated-iron shacks in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, said she does not have enough food to feed her family.
Life is a struggle for many in the Kroo Bay district, where pigs mingle with stray dogs in debris-strewn alleys that straddle an open sewer.
However, war in faraway Ukraine has made life more difficult: Fuel prices, as well as the prices of basics such as cooking oil and rice, have increased sharply in the West African nation.
Photo: AFP
“We need help,” said Turay, a 28-year-old mother of three, who added that price hikes were hitting at the same time as regular power cuts and a patchy water supply.
“We are barely surviving on a single meal every late evening,” she said. “No food, water or light.”
Diamond-rich Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, still recovering from its 1991-2002 civil war and an Ebola epidemic from 2014 to 2016.
Warnings that economic fallout from the war in Ukraine could hit poorer countries have become a reality in the nation of 7.5 million people, where about 43 percent of the population lives on less than US$1.90 per day, according to the World Bank.
Russia, a major producer of oil and gas, is under stringent Western sanctions. Its invasion of Ukraine in February has sent oil prices soaring worldwide, with consumer inflation also rising rapidly.
Musa Sesay, a grocer in Freetown, said that all of his suppliers had raised their prices.
“We are not responsible for the increase in prices. It’s a global problem,” he said.
A 50kg bag of rice until quite recently cost the equivalent of about US$29, but now costs US$35 — an increase of about 20 percent.
Fuel prices have also jumped.
Late last month, Sierra Leone’s Petroleum Regulatory Agency increased the ceiling prices for gasoline and diesel fuel by 34 percent and 40 percent respectively, compared with January.
The regulatory agency cited supply issues related to the deteriorating “geopolitical situation in Europe” as the reason behind the move.
The Sierra Leone government said that it intervened to cushion the blow to motorists — increased pump prices are lower than the increase in costs for importing fuel.
However, commercial drivers went on strike in Freetown after the price hike and blocked several roads in the city. Police had to fire teargas to clear the streets of protesters.
Four years into the first term of Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio, it is unclear whether the 57-year-old will be able to deliver on a campaign promise to tackle poverty and hunger.
“We have no business to do with the war in Ukraine, but our people are suffering here,” the president said during a live broadcast with business representatives this month, pledging to make decisions to help “ordinary people.”
The Sierra Leone central bank said in a statement on April 5 that inflation in the country had reached 17.6 percent in February.
“We are poor, hungry,” teacher Ibrahim Sesay said. “Salaries aren’t enough to pay for food, clothing and utility bills for the house.”
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