Kenema City is a stronghold of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), which implies that most of the traditional leaders in that part of the country have serious political backings. Against that backdrop, they enjoy absolute privilege in propagating their cultural practices in broad day light.
James Koroma, a homosexual gay is said to be on the run after enraged citizens in that part of the country laid siege and thronged his residence, capturing and killing his partner.
According to report, James Koroms’s family had disowned him years back upon their knowledge that he was a gay, and that his father who is a popular business tycoon and a fervent religious clergy in Kenema City had allegedly once threatened to kill him too should James Koroma ever come to their family house again.
A family friend to the fugitive, said that the ordeal of James started when he was 12 years old but not until later when he was caught by his father in bed with his partner.
Consequently, James was beaten mercilessly and disowned by his father, and according to him his religion cannot accept that and that he would rather die than to have James as his son and as a result he had to leave his father's house to go and reside with his partner in the same Kenema City.
Information gathered from sources in Kenema City states that on the 1st February 2021, James was approached by some youth for him to join the secrete Poro society. However instead of just declining to join the secret society, James used utterances that the society was “devilish” and “the followers are prone to hell”. That they say caused the traditional society members enraged, who say unless he forcefully join they or they will kill him.
“They attacked the residence of James, where he stays with his partner. Unfortunately for them, James had got an earlier leak, so he had to run out of the city for his life. We are told that his partner was beaten massively and later killed,” a resident of Kenema explained.
Apparently, a senior police source who spoke on condition of anonymity says: "that it would be advisable for him to be at large for now until the issue is calmed," adding that homosexual is prohibited in Sierra Leone and as a result of the entrenched cultural belief of citizens in Kenema City, the practice has been unreservedly frowned at.
Meanwhile, it could be recalled that Kenema City over the pass months have been a scene of unprecedented violence perpetrated against various groups of citizens.
In most of these cases, police are helpless to save innocent people as homosexual itself is illegal in Sierra Leone with little or no campaigners here for the protection of the rights of persons indulge in the act. So mostly the only resulting remedy is for youths whose lives are threatened to run for their lives as the violence gets out of control.
Nothing has been heard about James since