Clara Mallah had been investigating allegations of child trafficking at a children's safe home in Monrovia.
(CEMESP/IFEX) – Reporter Clara Mallah of “Frontpage Africa” newspaper in Monrovia has received a death threat from the Director of Women’s Aid, a children’s safe home.
Director Salamatu Kamara allegedly issued the threat hours after the publication of an article titled “Wrapped in Controversy – child trafficking center or safe home”, in the 5 January 2011 edition of the newspaper. The story was investigated and written by Mallah.
Explaining her ordeal, Mallah said that around 10:40 a.m. on 5 January, she received a telephone call from Kamara, who verbally abused the reporter vowing that Mallah would not live to tell her story.
Kamara was quoted in the telephone call to the reporter as saying “So you have decided to take food from my mouth, you have decided to close my organisation, but I leave you with God, you and your entire generation are cursed and nothing will come out of you, you and myself we are enemies for life and you will see.”
The journalist further narrated that Kamara’s threat on her life is a reflection of her earlier attitude toward the journalist, displayed on 4 January when Mallah, along with the paper’s judicial reporter, M.Welemongai Ciapha, had gone to Kamara’s office on Camp Johnson Road to clarify information surrounding allegations of child trafficking.
The pair had gone to dispel doubts surrounding the safe home, as it is being alleged that a child who went missing from 17 December 2010, to 31 December 2010 after leaving her guardian’s home, was found there.
