Mosquitoes making life miserable
RESIDENTS on the South Coast are crying out that the significant increase in the mosquito population, as a result of the on-going sewage crisis in the area, is making their lives a living hell.
Yesterday, some of the affected residents complained to Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate for Christ Church South, Queen’s Counsel Ralph Thorne, that they are concerned about their health.
“The mosquitoes coming by the millions as you see night coming. These mosquitoes are like vampires that come to eat you. The authorities claim that these mosquitoes are not going to make you sick, but if these go into the sewage water and bite you, what will happen?”
“There can be an outbreak or something. Then along with having to deal with the mosquitoes, that sewage water smells awful. Up to last night I was in my bed and I could not sleep because the mosquitoes got me miserable,” Carlton Crowney told The Barbados Advocate.
Another resident who did not give her name, lamented that the problem was now out of control.
Crowney was one of the residents who gathered at St Lawrence Primary, to speak to the BLP Candidate about the circumstances they are being forced to endure.
Thorne described the residents, and staff and students of St Lawrence Primary which has been closed due to the on-going challenges at the South Coast Sewerage Treatment Plant, as the forgotten victims in the crisis.
The candidate said how
businesses are being impacted by the crisis has been consistently highlighted, but, in his opinion, the plight of those who live in the area has not received much publicity.
“You have not heard a lot in the mainstream media, and the social media, about the people who live in St Lawrence who endured this problem for months now.
“No attention has been paid to them. The attention paid to this school is recent. These people have suffered in silence; they have suffered in quiet dignity.”
“I want to tell you that the purpose for our visit here this morning is one of invitation. We did not come here seeking to exploit a situation. We have been invited by the residents to come to highlight a problem that they have endured in the past few months,” Thorne said.
The candidate indicated that residents have asked him to contribute in some way to a relief effort. However, he said while he has answered the call, he was not prepared to say what was the nature of that relief effort, giving the explanation that residents are entitled to the dignity of privacy.”
“But they are in distress; I have heard them say that while other people work along the main road, they live here off the main road. I am afraid that the [Barbados] Water Authority and the Government have taken too long to address the problems of the residents,” he said. (AH)