Torrential rains in Sierra Leone's capital felled the centuries-old Cotton Tree, a national treasure whose loss has left 'a gap' in people's hearts, the country's President Julius Maada Bio said Thursday.
“There is no stronger symbol of our national story than the Cotton Tree, a physical embodiment of where we come from as a country,” Bio told the Associated Press. “Nothing in nature lasts forever, so our challenge is to rekindle, nurture, and develop that powerful African spirit for so long represented,.’‘s national symbol for decades.
It has appeared on bank notes, woven into lullabies and visited by royalty, such as Queen Elizabeth the II, to mark the country’s independence in 1961, according to a statement by Zebek International, a press agency working withWhile the tree had withstood damage throughout the years, including a lightning strike that has left it partially scorched, Wednesday’s storm left nothing of the tree but a stump.
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