By Emma Black
In Roysent Village, Port Loko District roughly 112 to 120 kilometres by road from Freetown the dry-season sun of 2025 beat down without mercy, Sento Sesay, six months pregnant, had been in her field since first light. Her hands worked steadily through the soil and her two young children carried plastic containers to water the young plants, farming was the only way she kept her family fed, that day, like so many before, she trusted that sheer endurance would carry her through.
Then the dizziness came, “I thought it would pass,” she said later, her vision blurred, her chest tightened, and her legs buckled, she collapsed among the rows, nearby farmers lifted her limp, sweat-soaked body and carried her home, a clinic visit was out of reach the cost too high so she lay on a mat for days, skin burning, pulse racing, relying on whatever home remedies she had. She had never heard the words “heat exhaustion,” all she knew was that the heat had nearly killed her. What had once seemed a path out of poverty had turned into a daily source of sickness, expense, and lost days of work.
Sento’s story is not isolated, across Sierra Leone in 2025, extreme heat has become one of the country’s most serious yet under-recognised threats, unlike floods or landslides that leave visible destruction, heat works quietly overloading the heart and lungs, causing dangerous dehydration and kidney strain, complicating pregnancies, worsening breathing problems, and driving already vulnerable families deeper into hardship.
Women carry the heaviest load. They make up the majority of smallholder farmers and informal market traders, spending long hours under direct sun without shade, fans, or dependable weather information, then returning to poorly ventilated homes to look after children, elderly parents, and the sick, health workers call it a hidden public health emergency.
Economists point to the steady erosion of productivity. Experts see a clear gender dimension to climate injustice.
The Sierra Leone Meteorological Agency records show that 2021–2025 was the hottest five-year period in the country’s documented history. Peak seasonal temperatures rose between 0.5°C and 1.0°C compared with 1990s averages, with daytime highs regularly hitting 33–35°C and humidity making it feel even hotter, at nighttime lows often stayed above 26°C, giving bodies little chance to recover, More than 60 percent of the population now faces “high” or “very high” heat-risk days each year, Zinc-roofed houses trap heat, pushing indoor temperatures 5–8°C above the outside air and turning homes into ovens at night.
Agriculture supports about 30 percent of Sierra Leoneans, and women provide most of the labour, Forecasts indicate that staple crop yields could fall 20-30 percent by 2050 if warming continues, driven by degraded soil, disrupted planting seasons, and rising pest pressure, heat stress has already cut potential working hours sharply up to 92 per cent more lost time compared with the 1990s.
The Meteorological deputy director Gabril Kpaka, said the metrological agency runs around 200 stations across the country, but only 13 are fully operational, Most rural women receive weather updates if at all through Facebook or WhatsApp messages, channels they often cannot access because they lack smartphones or steady internet, Without reliable early warnings or practical advice, frontline farmers remain exposed far longer than necessary.
The trend became unmistakable around 2021, when temperatures began regularly exceeding long-term averages, warmer nights made the problem worse sustained heat at night prevents recovery, deepens dehydration, and sets the stage for collapses the next day, in informal settlements, metal roofs turned houses into heat traps, robbing people of rest and aggravating long-term health conditions.
Between 2022 and 2024, dry-season heatwaves grew longer, more frequent, and more intense, particularly along the coast and in northern districts, hospitals saw more cases of dehydration, fainting, and kidney problems among people who work outdoors, many of these incidents were never officially linked to heat; patients received treatment for the symptoms and were sent home, the severe West African heatwave in April 2024 made 10 to 15 times more likely by climate change brought the pattern into sharp focus.
Mother of two drops out of school go in to agriculture. Image, Emma Black, ManoReporters.
In Roygum Village, Bombali District, Samma Sesay, a mother of four, farms to cover her children’s school fees. “I don’t know anything about climate change,” she said plainly, “but the place is too hot now,” she works from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., with her children helping after school, the weakness, dizziness, and constant thirst are signs of heat exhaustion, yet she keeps going, “the work is hard, the heat is too much, and the money is small.”
Fatmata Kamara in Roysent Village tells a similar story. A school dropout and mother of two, she spends what she earns on medicine, hired help, and farm inputs, “I don’t see the money,” she said, she has collapsed more than once and treats herself at home because hospital visits are too expensive, “I wet my head and sit in the shade when it becomes unbearable.”
Public health specialist Dr. Harold Thomas describes extreme heat as a multiplying crisis, “it is a public health emergency,” he said, clinics and hospitals are seeing more heat rash, muscle cramps, exhaustion, dehydration, and full heatstroke among people who work outdoors, heat intensifies existing problems, extra strain on the heart, more severe asthma attacks, kidney damage from repeated dehydration.
Pregnant women are especially at risk, heat interferes with blood flow to the placenta, increases dehydration, and raises blood pressure, contributing to higher rates of stillbirth, premature delivery, and babies born with low weight, newborns and small children, whose bodies cannot yet regulate temperature well, face serious dehydration and secondary infections.
Economically the impact is immediate and widespread, More than 90 percent of working hours in the country are exposed to heat stress, already reducing Freetown’s economic output by roughly 3.5 percent in 2025.
Without stronger adaptation measures, those losses are projected to exceed 6 percent by 2050, women in informal trade and farming feel the effects most directly: produce spoils quickly, earnings drop, fatigue shortens working hours, and self-treatment adds to household expenses.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security notes that heat now affects farming year-round, in the rainy season, high humidity combined with elevated temperatures increases exhaustion, kidney strain, and the spread of diseases such as malaria, “the rainy season has become the most dangerous period,” said Public relations officer Christina Scott, warmer conditions allow mosquitoes to breed throughout the year, driving up malaria cases.
Environmental damage makes the situation worse. Wildfires are burning through coastal forests, destroying natural windbreaks and accelerating soil erosion, the ministry projects that staple crop yields could drop 20–30 percent by 2050, threatening food security in a nation where most people depend on agriculture.
Through the Feed Salone programme, the Ministry focuses support on women farmers, providing training in climate-smart techniques mulching, rainwater harvesting, heat-tolerant seeds along with solar-powered irrigation and cold storage to reduce post-harvest losses, partnerships with non-governmental organisations help improve access to land, credit, and weather information.
In Freetown, Chief Heat Officer Eugenia Kargbo, appointed in 2021, leads city-wide resilience work, the February 2025 Heat Action Plan Africa’s first includes shade structures in markets, cool roofs for homes, early-warning systems, mobile heat sensors, and the planting of more than 1.2 million trees to reduce the urban heat-island effect.
The Mama-Pikin Foundation has documented a clear rise in heat-related maternal complications hypertension in pregnancy, preterm births, and stillbirths in 2024 and 2025, country director Leeann Rizk said, “pregnant women are especially vulnerable.” The foundation’s 2025 climate literacy tool provides straightforward, local-language education on heat risks and practical prevention steps, reaching women in markets, clinics, and rural areas.
Globally, 2024 was confirmed as the hottest year on record, 1.55°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the World Meteorological organization, Sierra Leone is warming faster than the global average, with longer hot seasons and more humid nights that make it harder for the body to cool down, the World Health Organization estimates 489,000 heat-related deaths worldwide each year, though many are recorded under other causes.
The story is supported by Climate Resilience for All
