MEMBERS of a Blackburn charity have travelled to Sierra Leone to distribute aid.

Maulana Faruk Patel, the principal of Madrasah Zeenatul Quran, and the ex-mayor of Blackburn with Darwen Council Salim Mulla, who is the chairman of Help 4 Ummah charity, visited the African nation.

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Sierra Leone is a small country in Africa where 90 per cent of the people live in poverty.

They sacrificed 64 goats and four cows in the slaughterhouse and made food for the whole village of about 1,000 people.

Maulana Faruk said: “I was shocked when I saw that they were fighting over the skin of the animals – first I thought they would sell the skin but then someone told me that they will clean the skin and make further food with tree leaves.”

Maulana Faruk said: “It brought tears to our eyes that every day they would eat only one thing, which is boiled rice with leaves of a kasawa tree.”

The team distributed 2,500kg of rice.

Maulana Faruk added: “I have been to so many countries carrying out charity projects, but I have never seen poverty like that of the Sierra Leone people, and what they go through. Even with this poverty, people were so nice and friendly – all the villagers came out to welcome us and spend the whole day with us until we stayed there.

“The government was also very happy with our work – they promised to work with us.”

Maulana Faruk wants to thank all those who donated to this worthy and needy cause.

He is now planning to travel to Sierra Leone in February with the rice project.