Soniwhein Residents Decry Poor Sanitary Condition

-Want Gov’t Prompt Intervention

By T. Saye Goinleh

Residents of Soniwhein Community on Johnson Street in central Monrovia are complaining of poor and unhygienic conditions coupled with limited access to quality healthcare despite the close proximity of a clinic in the area.

The residents told the New Republic in an interview that as a result of sewage leakages and the presence of huge pile of garbage confronting them, they are also faced with serious threats to their livelihood occasioned by an enormous population of rats and roaches that usually invade their dwelling places especially when on the dining table.

A Seventy-year-old man, Patrick Doe who claimed to be a resident of the area told this Paper in an interview in Soniwhein that the over five thousand residents of the zone, including adults and children have no access to hand pump as a source of safe drinking water which is also compounded by no latrine facilities for dwellers.

Doe used the occasion to call for the urgent intervention of national government and all humanitarian groups operating in the country to address the deplorable situation by constructing hand pumps and latrines in Soniwhein.

Doe further went on to narrate that due to the lack of good toilet facilities, residents usually ease themselves in some plastic bags at night and throw them in the drainages, something he said is polluting the whole settlement which according to him has the propensity to cause health problems for those living there.

He further revealed that the only available public toilet in Soniwhein has no septic tank which causes feces to flow openly into the drainages thereby creating health hazards for residents of the area that at times result to sicknesses.

According to Old Man Doe, as the result of offensive odor from the flowing feces that engulf the entire area, flies and other flying insects always overwhelm the Soniwhein community to the dislike of the inhabitants who have no other means to relocating elsewhere due to financial difficulties.

Soniwhein Community is located in central Monrovia on Johnson Street and not far away from the Rally Time Market on UN Drive. It has a government-run clinic, but the mountain of garbage disposed from the populated market nearby has rendered the facility vulnerable to crawling insects that patients nowadays hardly go there for treatment.