By Sulaiman Jalloh
The Sierra Leone Police (SLP) has informed pressmen that five, including a Bishop, are in Police custody, helping with police investigation relating to the death of two young boys attending the Pentecostal School in Freetown.
Report says, late Tuesday, March 18, 2025, two boys were founded dead in a stationed vehicle leaving one girl child in a critical condition. These children were in the nursery.
Speaking to journalists at police headquarters in Freetown on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, ASP Mohammed Bobson Senu, media 2 of the Sierra Leone Police, said at the time of the interview, the police were investigating five persons including a Bishop of the Limba Pentecostal Church located at the heart of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.
According to ASP Senu, police received a distress call at around 22:30 hrs on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, noting the SLP responded to calm the situation down at the scene, adding CID officers discovered three children (two boys and one girl) at a stationed vehicle and they were relocated to the hospital. He added that at the hospital, the two boys were pronounced dead, and the girl was in critical condition, responding to treatment. “As I am speaking to you now, we have five people, including one B-shop, in custody helping the police with the investigation to ascertain the situation. And we are yet to ascertain the cause of the death because that one has to be done through autopsy,” he explained. He mentioned that the concerns of family members were the lives and safety of their children something he said if someone sent their children to school the person must be concerned about the safety and well-being of their kids while promising that the SLP will do the needful emphasizing that no physical assaults was recorded from either the two casualties and the survivor.
As things become worrisome, ASP Senu noted that police would ensure that the matter is investigated and anyone found guilty would be dealt with within the ambit of the Law and justice be served. However, he could not give the timeliness of the investigation but assured that the police would investigate the matter speedily. He added that felonious offenses require stages of investigations while calling on citizens to exercise patience as the investigation continues.
Tenneh Samura, a parent to one of the victims, Patrick Hassan Kamara in tears, narrated, “My child will not come back home. Pentecostal give back my child. That is the only child I have”. She noted that she was not able to see the bishop, saying she received the call at around 1 PM that her son was not seen on the school campus.
One of the society activists in the country raised concern and called on authorities to investigate the matter. Marcus Bangura, Executive Director of Citizens Forum for Democratic Accountability (C4D), told journalists that apart from him being a civil society activist, one of the victims identified as Patrick was his relative. “I received a call that they had found the children and I rushed there. We checked around and the two boys were found in an old parked car because the girl was not there” he narrated, adding the process of investigation at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was very slow.
The civil society activist asserted termed the incident as worrisome, saying the vehicle in question was parked at the residence of the bishop whose name is yet to be made public.
In recent times, there has been reports of incidents in schools among which is the alleged and Poison of one late Kadija Jalloh. ” I am extremely concern, irrespective of the fact that I am connected or related to one deceased children, as a civil society activist and as a citizen of Sierra Leone, it will not go down well for our children to disappear or raped in school” he express concern, adding “if we have series of incidents and it still happening, the it means we are concern and it means the schools are not secure” stressing that it is threatening the safety of schools. “We are not secure” he concluded while calling on the government to put on security measures in schools.