Most of these children in Kigbal have been orphaned by Ebola
By Umaru Fofana
He appeared from the blue. He wore a broad smile. He looked healthy and well fed in a village where hunger is written on the faces of many. Ka Gbanthama in the Bureh Kasha Makonteh or BKM chiefdom in Port Loko, northern Sierra Leone.
This is also a village where Ebola is wreaking untold havoc. Families are being visited and decimated by a virus that is tearing the nook and cranny of a country on the brink of a catastrophe.
As his dark skin colour glowed in the heat and humidity, Amara Sesay’s red Manchester United t-shirt emblazoned. Clearly it is not the flagging fortunes of the English premier league team that’s on the mind of this 12-year-old. He is far more excited. He is far much happier.
But beneath the veneer of that excitement and happiness belie the irony and tragedy of monumental proportions for this young boy whose future now looks blighted. He is one of only two people in Ka Gbanthama who have no reason to fear Ebola – the other being Alimamy – as they have recovered from it.
The two are therefore immune to a disease to which everyone else there is at risk – and are frightened as more continue to die. Amara stood akimbo as if to say “do you people not notice me?” He smiled again, as the world gathered in his village to complete the construction of a health facility and train staff thereof, to serve as the first layer of people suspected to have Ebola.
Between 11 September and 5 October, Amara’s world came tumbling down. First his father, Ibrahim, died from an unknown disease. His mother, Mbalu fell ill. So did his grandmother, three brothers and his sister. So did he.
On 22 September they were all transported to Port Loko town as no facilities existed in Ka Gbanthama to look after them. They were held in Port Loko without treatment and without a confirmed diagnosis as the test result took forever to come through from Freetown. Effectively they were abandoned. Some five days later, Amara’s grandma and four siblings died from Ebola in Port Loko town.
Mamusu, Amara’s paternal aunt who had come to the village to help look after her sick brother, would later contract the virus. She infected her husband and her daughter. All three died.
With Ebola now certified as the cause of the death of his father, Amara and his mother were taken to the Kenema Ebola Treatment Centre on 29 September. On the following day his mother died. Amara would later recover and on 6 October he returned to his home where he lives with an uncle who struggles to take care of his children – let alone.
Grim as things may look in Ka Gbanthama – in the north of the district – they are apocalyptic in the western axis. A boy, can’t remember his name, stood in a crowd of dozens of children at Kigbal in the Lokomasama chiefdom. His hair curled by filth. His nails bedaubed with muddy tropical earth. His unhealthily protruded stomach left partly bare because his dirty shirt was wrongly buttoned with some undone. His eyes were buried in fright. Hope is a long away.
The boy – definitely less than six years – was one of dozens of children orphaned by Ebola in Kigbal. A town of about 300 people has lost over 30 to Ebola and counting. Many more are believed to have died from the disease before testing started on them. And many more others are believed to have died since but were unregistered.
Some other orphaned children in Kigbal have had to be taken to a Holding Centre in the chiefdom headquarters, a facility that lacks such basic things as wellington boots for all its workers. Working in a facility with suspected – even confirmed – Ebola cases without these badly-needed boots.
Ebola is a sad chapter in our country’s history. The government’s handling of it is the real tragedy. Six months into the outbreak they have neither given a good account in dealing with the virus nor have they sought to address the fallouts thereof including a plan for our children, and insurance for the health workers who are on the frontline.
Ghana, without a single confirmed case, has set up a thorough insurance for its health workers should Ebola get there. We had to wait for Ebola to hit Koinadugu – the last district to fall to the disease – before setting up health facilities for such, training health workers, or even setting up burial teams. Or did we expect the World Health Organisation or the British government to have done that? What are our leaders there to do? Where is their thinking cap? What are they being paid for?
Amara and those hundreds of other kids who have been orphaned by Ebola could be lost. This, in addition to the thousands of others who have been affected through the deaths of their guardians.
With schools closed since July, Sierra Leone’s children are in big trouble. Girls who, even in the best of times struggle to resist early marriage, stand the risk of early pregnancy. 10% of the over 1,400 who have died of Ebola are children. Those who have survived the disease, like Amara, surely deserve better from their own government.
But I bet that the ministry of health does not have data for all those who have survived the disease. That’s not strange when some survive and even to take them back to their homes is a problem. These survivors are not only useful in that their blood is gem for convalescent serum, they also deserve to be celebrated for having survived the biggest scare in the world today. We are losing our future if we cannot tend to our children.
(C) Politico 04/11/14
