By Emma Black
Rokel Village, Sierra Leone the Rokel River, long the heartbeat of this verdant village, is under siege. Beneath its once-lush canopy, a quiet rage swells as residents confront SIND Mining company, a chinese-backed outfit blamed for choking their waterway with pollutants, leveling forests, and fraying the threads of their existence.
We lived by the Rokel drinking its water, netting its fish, tending its fertile banks, said Pa Alimamy Kargbo, a 63-year-old farmer and elder, his voice heavy with loss, now it stinks of chemicals. The fish are ghosts. Even the mangoes taste of struggle.
SIND’s copper mines fueling the world’s hunger for wiring, gadgets, and green tech have metastasized near Rokel. Villagers count at least four sites since late 2023, each a scar of grinding machines and flattened earth. Satellite images I reviewed starkly confirm their fears: forest cover has hemorrhaged between then and early 2025, matching a rising tide of anguish over fouled water and vanished greenery.
They descend under darkness with bulldozers and chainsaws, said Isatu Bangura, a mother of four and trader. “Come sunrise, our trees are stumps. The forest our healer, our pantry is slipping away.
Last month, SIND pointed fingers at local youths, alleging they sabotaged gear and sullied the river, the accusation ignited fury, it’s their filth greasy slicks and crimson sludge spilling in with every downpour, countered Mohamed Sesay, a 27-year-old youth leader, they’re framing us to mask their mess.
The toll is palpable. Children wade in and return with rashes; rice and cassava wither near the mines, the Rokel, once a silver lifeline, now churns thick and dark a silent witness to a village’s dread.
Climate change tightens the noose. The Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency logs two years of wild rains and blistering heat in the region, scrambling harvests and imperiling wildlife, rain betrays us early one day, late the next, said Kadiatu Mansaray, a cocoa grower, mining’s poison just seals our fate.
Experts sound the alarm, deforestation here is a fuse. razing forests by the Rokel courts disaster, said Dr. Ibrahim Fofanah, a climate scientist at Njala University. It feeds climate havoc, strips flood shields, and starves livelihoods.
The Ministry of mines and environmental protection Agency stay mute despite pleas. Chiefs’ letters gather dust, we’re not against growth, said Chief Mariama Conteh, her tone resolute, but it can’t drown our river or bury our land. With no help from above, villagers rise, watchdog teams stalk SIND’s tracks, lenses poised; others clamor for outside probes and global ears, this is resistance born of necessity.