By Sallieu S, Kanu
Sierra Leone — October 27, 2025: The Freetown City Council (FCC) has resumed the collection of corpses from the city’s streets, despite lacking a formal mandate for the task. The decision, announced by Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, follows a prolonged stalemate with the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs (MLGCA) over responsibility for the growing number of unclaimed bodies across the capital.
“Although FCC does not have this mandate, we will today resume collections in the interest of dignity and public health,” Mayor Aki-Sawyerr stated, noting that six corpses currently remain on the streets.
The move comes after the mayor temporarily suspended the service earlier this month when the MLGCA requested verification of her public claim that FCC had collected 220 bodies between January 1 and October 8, 2025. In response, the mayor submitted a detailed spreadsheet to the Ministry on October 20, documenting the corpses’ dates, locations, gender, and burial status. Of the 220 bodies, 170 were buried by the Council, while 50 were claimed by relatives. Photographs were taken for all cases, though images of those later claimed remain confidential to protect family privacy.
The mayor’s letter also highlighted a disturbing surge in street deaths over the past two years. “Between 2020 and 2023, the number of corpses collected annually was less than 50. In the past two years, we have seen a dramatic increase,” she wrote.
While many of the deceased were young men, the Council emphasized that links to the synthetic drug Kush remain anecdotal and require government-led verification through post-mortem investigations. The mayor previously raised the alarm in a letter dated September 17, 2025, addressed to both the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Minister of Local Government, citing 142 corpses collected by August 13—136 males and 6 females—with 32 more recovered less than a month later, 31 of whom were male.
“The frequency with which corpses are being collected from the streets by Freetown City Council is neither natural nor acceptable and constitutes a matter of urgent public concern,” the mayor warned.
In response to questions about FCC’s legal authority to conduct body retrievals, the Council had suspended the service pending clarification from the Ministry. “Please provide contact details of who we should report to when a corpse is found,” the mayor requested in her correspondence.
The resumption of corpse collection by FCC underscores the urgency of the situation and the need for a coordinated national response to address the alarming rise in unexplained deaths and the suspected impact of synthetic drugs on Sierra Leone’s youth.