Ebola crisis hits home for African community

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This article was published 03/10/2014 (4263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Ebola crisis distresses Zita Somakoko so much she can’t even answer the phone.

She’s afraid of hearing the news coming from the other end.

“It’s overwhelming and quite terrifying,” she said following a press conference featuring a number of members of Winnipeg’s African community detailing the struggles back home. “From the beginning, I was just paralyzed, and I’m still that way today. I’m not ready to hear that my father has become infected or that someone else that I know has it.

“When the phone rings, my heart goes ‘boom!’ I see that it’s Guinea and I let it go to the machine. Every single time. I think that it might be easier to hear the message played than to have the person tell me directly that something is wrong.”

Somakoko hails from the Central Africa Republic, a landlocked country approximately 3,600 kilometres east of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and the Western Africa region at the heart of the Ebola crisis. In regular contact with her father, a church pastor who is doing humanitarian work in Guinea, she, like many others in Winnipeg’s African community, are starting to see their fears of Ebola turn to frustration and anger.

The report from her father is grim, she says. People are dying. Bodies are being left in health-centre hallways. Medical supplies are dwindling. Human resources are quickly disappearing, as fears become realized and more cases are diagnosed. Basic sanitary supplies, such as hand soap, are quickly running out in the communities.

“This is what (my father) told me, ‘Daughter, if I must die in this because lives need to be saved, then I should die,’ ” Somakoko said.

The purpose of Thursday’s press conference was two-fold: First, it was an announcement of a call for prayer at Knox United Church, tonight at 7 p.m. Everyone is invited. Second, the local African expats wanted to raise the awareness of Ebola here, specifically how the virus is becoming a global issue.

“This is not only a West African crisis, this is not only an African crisis, this is a world crisis,” Somakoko said. “This threat is real. Here, in this community, we have lost mothers and fathers, children and grandparents. We need to do something more than what’s going on now.”

Simeon Ganda came to Winnipeg from the southern region of Sierra Leone in 2010. A number of family members are still there, and he describes a health-care system in Sierra Leone not uncommon for the region; with only 163 doctors for a population of six million people, proper care was already tenuous at best.

“You don’t know who might come into your house who has already been infected,” he said. “Just a single contact with that infected person will lead to an infection for all.”

As of Thursday, Ebola had claimed more than 3,300 lives, said the World Health Organization.

‘This is not only a West African crisis, this is not only an African crisis, this is a world crisis’

— Zita Somakoko

Ganda said a growing problem is what to do with children after their parents die or become quarantined. Humanitarian-aid organizations such as UNICEF are stretched to their limits. Ganda says orphaned children are often shunned by extended family due to fears the children are carrying the virus. In most cases, the children are taken in by the nurses who helped treat their parents.

Many Western-African communities are in a semi-lockdown state these days, with families asked to stay home unless they need to get supplies (food) or go to work. Ganda, who cites a series of misinformation and Ebola denial by government officials as the major cause for the epidemic, said a daily schedule only consists of those going to work in the morning and returning home immediately afterward. By 6 p.m., when the town is usually buzzing with activity, there’s nothing happening. It’s a ghost town.

Makhady Boucher-Camara, who’s been living in Winnipeg for 16 years, still has three sisters in Guinea. She doesn’t know what the future holds for her old home.

“I’m worried for them,” she said. “I’m worried for everyone there.”

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca