Sierra Leone: over a million people living in quarantaine are starving

[Gert van der Hoek]

Via Facebook:

nov 3 2014

Emerson Fowai

The name'World Food Program' is a household and a reputable name in term of food crisis. I knew this agency when i was a primary school pupil in 1998 in Liberia. But the partnership it has created with a local organization called CIDO to supply food to an Ebola ravaged Kailahun District,is on the brinks of bringing its long standing enviable reputation in to disrepute. WFP MUST GO BACK to a drawing board.

I am compiling a comprehensive report backed by tangible pieces of evidence about the attitude and behavior of CIDO workers,how they are conniving and colluding with local authorities to rape the poor people of Kailahun District of this much needed food supply. It's painful! I was almost in tears when i visited Buedu town on Thursday, people from Feinesu,Fallama,Gbomodu,Maakor,Gaudu etc walked long distances for three consecutive days without getting anything. It's just one of the numerous examples in the district.

thanks to Ginny Mooy

October 29, 2014

Starvation: deepening the Ebola crisis

(.....)

Effective but humane quarantine measures are now seen as key to breaking the chain of transmission and stopping Ebola in its tracks. But at the moment, the system is failing the people it is designed to protect: hunger and food insecurity are undermining it.

Across Sierra Leone, over a million people in households, neighbourhoods and even entire districts have been isolated and their basic needs are going unmet. It is counter-productive to isolate people without providing a sufficient and constant supply of nutritious food and clean water. And yet, this is what is happening in Freetown.

Official procedures dictate that as soon as someone is suspected of having contracted the virus, their entire household must remain at home for 21 days (the incubation period). They are then subjected to regular health checks. They should also be given food aid, a task coordinated by the World Food Programme. However, there seems to be a huge disconnect between demand and supply.

Often enough, food parcels don’t reach those who need them, if they get to the area at all. There are reports of quarantined homes falling through the cracks, people going without food assistance for weeks, tensions and violence within angry, hungry communities. People are being driven to break out of their houses and go in search of food.

With farming disrupted, markets closed, livelihoods hit and food prices shooting up, those who lived hand-to-mouth before the outbreak are now facing even more hardship. In ordinary times, people here do not have enough food to feed themselves for a day, never mind three weeks. It is no surprise that they are breaking quarantine.

If your child is hungry, you have an unbearable choice: stay at home and watch them slowly starve, or leave the house and expose yourself – and potentially others – to the virus.

- See more at: http://newint.org/blog/2014/10/29/ebola-starvation-sierra-leone/#sthash.5SIL0MYo.dpuf

 

[tetano]

Re: Sierra Leone: over a million people living in quarantaine are starving

Ebola quarantines violated in search of food

Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid's Sierra Leone representative, said on Tuesday that though agencies were trying to reach communities to deliver food, there were many "nooks and crannies'' in the country that were being missed, leading people to turn to desperate measures to find food.

Kamara said that because services are not reaching them, people who are being monitored for signs of Ebola - and should be staying at home - are venturing out to markets to look for food, potentially contaminating many others.

Christian Aid's coordinator said that with infections still on the rise, it was difficult for the government to keep up with the number of people being monitored for the disease.
"The number is just rising exponentially,'' she said. "The speed with which we have to have such a robust system of planning and coordination'' is too fast.


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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/afric...-violated-search-food-201411543857794804.html