The Legacy Of President Koromas Government!!!! Dispatch: Not since the brutal civil war of the 1990s has Sierra Leone witnessed such apocalyptic scenes as the King Tom cemetery struggles to bury the countrys Ebola victims – including an increasing number of children Named after a long-forgotten tribal ruler of Sierra Leone, the King Tom cemetery hides behind flaking grey walls in the suburbs of northern Freetown. For years, it has fought a losing battle for space with the neighbouring municipal refuse dump, from which piles of rubbish overflow on to the rows of overgrown headstones. Now, though, the tide is in reverse – as the cemetery overflows with the casualties of Sierra Leones Ebola crisis. Since the outbreak spiralled out of control last summer, an average of 50 bodies have been laid to rest here every day by boiler-suited health workers. Such is the pace of new arrivals that the plots are marked only by tiny plywood sticks, each with a name scrawled in red marker pen. Already they occupy a space the size of a football pitch, and in one corner, bulldozers are clearing sections of the city tip to make room for more. The most unsettling sight of all, however, is the bags that require hardly any effort to carry at all. When The Telegraph visited the cemetery last week, a procession of three burial workers picked their way through the graves, each with a tiny, knapsack-sized bag cradled in their arms. Edward Conteh, aged 3, Amna Kabbah Dumbaya, aged four months, and Mamayo Sesay, aged two weeks, were buried in a section specially set aside for children. It is also by far the fastest-growing section. In the first five days of January alone, 156 children under five were buried there, according to Fiona McLysaght, country director for the charity Concern Worldwide, which is supervising the burial operation. The number of children we are burying every week is absolutely staggering, said Ms McLysaght, whose charitys work is being funded by Britains £232.5 million Ebola aid package to Sierra Leone. It is an appalling situation, although we believe they are mainly non-Ebola cases that are related to the secondary health-care crisis. The secondary health care crisis is aid agency-speak for how the virus has also crippled the countrys war-ravaged health service, killing at least 110 medics and forcing many hospitals to shut. Malaria-ridden Sierra Leone already had one of the worlds highest infant mortality rates anyway. Now, even more newborns than before will never see a first birthday, let alone a fifth. Among the charities addressing this wider tragedy is the Masanga Mentor Ebola Initiative, one of charities supported by The Telegraphs Christmas Charity Appeal which runs to the end of the month. Its work includes training community health workers in basic – and infection-free – surgical techniques so they can step in where doctors are not available. A glance at the cemeterys handwritten registry book, which is kept on a table underneath a mango tree, shows how the very young are suffering disproportionately. Of the days 37 entries so far, 22 were aged 10 or under. Among them were five entries in a row marked stillborn. In the early days of the outbreak, burying so many youngsters at once used to make the chief gravedigger cry. Now it is routine.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:32:41 +0000
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