Freetown-3rd September 2022-The rain in Freetown always fell with a heavy, relentless weight, but on the evening of August 10 2022, the atmosphere at 73 Regent Road, just off Circular Road, felt heavier than the storm outside.
Mariama Abigail Samura, a dedicated local health care nurse, sat in her living room, her hands trembling as she scrolled through her phone. Outside, the streets of Freetown were chaotic. A protest earlier that day had turned into a violent riot, clashing protesters against state security. Mariama was a well-known figure in her neighbourhood not as a rioter but as a compassionate healthcare worker and a passionate member of the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party. She believed in her party’s vision, but her life’s work was saving lives, and she had never advocated for violence.By nightfall, the narrative shifted. Local stalwarts of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) began pointing fingers. For those looking to silence opposition voice, the day’s chaos provided the perfect cover. Word reached Mariama quickly: her name was being circulated on lists of alleged riot organizers.
“It’s a lie,” she whispered to her sister, her voice cracking. “I am a nurse. I heal people; I don’t hurt them. I was nowhere near the clashes. They are framing me.”
She vehemently denied the allegations to anyone who called, but truth mattered little in the heat of political retaliation. Within days, the intimidation began.
The first raid happened past midnight. Loud bangs on the heavy metal door shattered the silence. Armed police officers, accompanied by aggressive men in civilian clothes, forced their way into the house. They turned the rooms upside down, shouting accusations and demanding to know where she hid “the weapons and the funding” for the riot.
Before leaving, one of the men leaned close to Mariama, his voice a low, terrifying hiss. “We will deal with you severely. You think the APC or your nursing badge can save you now?”
The raids became a routine of terror. Every footstep outside her window sent Mariama’s heart racing. She knew that in the current political climate, a fair trial was an illusion. The justice system felt heavily tilted, and the threats from ruling party stalwarts grew more direct and dangerous by the day. They weren’t just looking to arrest her; they wanted to break her.
Her family watched her wither under the constant fear, her vibrant spirit as a caretaker replaced by the hyper-vigilance of a hunted person.
“You have to leave, Mariama,” her elder brother told her one evening after a particularly aggressive raid left their mother in tears. “If you stay here, they will kill you or lock you away where no one can find you.”
Leaving Freetown, the city she loved, healed, and fought for, was the hardest decision of her life. Under the cover of a pitch-black night, with nothing but a small backpack and the prayers of her family, Mariama slipped away from her home. She avoided the main checkpoints, navigating the dark bypasses out of the capital.
Days later, when the authorities returned to raid the house again, they found only her distraught relatives.
When asked about her whereabouts by concerned community members, her family could only offer vague, tearful answers. Family sources later confirmed to local sympathizers that the threats against her life had become completely unbearable. For her own survival, Mariama Abigail Samura had fled the country to an unknown destination, her voice silenced in Freetown, joining the quiet ranks of political exiles running from a system that refused to hear her innocence
