Youna Village continues with calls for bridge
rehabilitation support
The residence of Youna Village in Kombo North West Coast Region has continued with their
call for support of the rehabilitation of their bridge which was overcome during the recent heavy
rainfall that has brought a lot of destructions with lots of displacements in the Gambia.
It could be recalled that a heavy rainfall occurred on Saturday 30 th July and Sunday 31th July
2022 which led to various damages across the country and the people of Youna Village also
had their case. However, the damaged bridge serves as the entrance to the community which is
also considered a busy route.
It was reported that due to the downpour, on Monday August 1 st , it was a serious that both
adults and children had to be assisted to cross the bridge in order to go on their daily routine.
Speaking to VOD, Mark Demba, and a youth of Youna village said “we have been helping
people to cross the bridge since morning and to be honest we need help in reconstructing this
bridge to avoid similar cases in the future”.
The people of this community have not seen any positive response since the incident
happened, just a few NRA staffs who brought some rocks and fixed them in some of the holes
around the bridge to facilitate the movement of the people and vehicles in and out of the
community.
“Apart from the bridge, the community lacks proper road network to facilitate the movement of
people to and from the community. The road construction road only stopped at Mariama Kunda
which was a big disappointment to the people of Youna, for they expected that the road would
be constructed in their community as well,” he said.
Mariama Bah, a business woman who sells vegetable at the serrekunda market also explained
how she struggles every morning from her house to the market because of the bad road and
that the situation gets worst in the evening while going back home.
She noted that drivers would prefer to stop at Mariama Kunda instead of going all the way to
Youna Village. “we suffer the most during the rainy season, sometimes we would walk from
Mariama Kunda to Youna when we don’t have any vehicle going all the way to Youna”, she
complained.
“The people of this community calls on all relevant stakeholders to help them in reconstructing
their bridge and completing the road construction which was stopped at Mariama Kunda,” she
further appealed.
