We had just come home from school when we heard gunfire. I remember I was lifting my school uniform over my head when the first shot was fired. People started running and screaming, "get down - there are guns, there are rebels".

Normal life ended for me that very minute, that afternoon and never has gone back to the same.

I was only 9 years old and, during the confusion that followed, just wanted my mum. She had been in transit that morning and so was separated from the rest of the family. I didn't know where she was or even whether she was still alive. It was a feeling worse than being in the war itself.

The rebels in Liberia at the time were horrible looking and just the sight of them would make you shiver. They would smear the blood of victims on their faces and that smell surrounded them. They killed people and a group of them ate our dogs.

The first group of rebels were fully grown men, but eventually they were boys.

My dad's younger sister arranged a way for us to get out of Monrovia, by stowing away on the Sierra Leone army ship. I think there were about two hundred people packed onto that ship. I remember a lady holding a baby who was pushed and the baby flung out of her arms. I don't know what happened to that lady but her baby drowned in the ocean. Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Stuff

Bishop Anthony Borwah of GBarnga diocese in Liberia has sent a written intervention to the synod instead.

In August, Bishop Borwah discovered that neighbouring Ivory Coast had restricted airline travel and closed its borders.

So he couldn't get to Abidjan where he would have been able to apply for a visa to enter the European Union.

Bishop Borwah's intervention described the challenges facing the family in Liberia today.

These include Ebola, polygamy, migration, unemployment, the lack of a father-figures, domestic violence, child trafficking, and sexual tourism.

"Existential questions from the poor, prevalent during the civil war, are been asked again: Where is God? What wrong have we (Liberians) done again?

"How come we have once again become the abandoned and scum of the earth?"

The bishop has called for daily prayer gatherings in his diocese in the wake of the Ebola outbreak.

At these gatherings, strict hygiene restrictions are being observed and updates are given of the latest Ebola situation.

More than 80 per cent of Liberia's population live in poverty and food prices have skyrocketed due to recent port and border closures.

Bishop Borwah is grateful for global aid groups and donors, including Catholic agencies, but more support is needed.

Survivors of Ebola also need support because they are being stigmatised, he said.

The death toll in West Africa has reached more than 4000 people, mainly from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

There have been more than 8000 suspected cases in the current outbreak.

But Pope Francis has not forgotten the Liberian people, Bishop Borwah said.

"The Holy Father prays for Ebola stricken people every day, even as the synod goes on," the bishop said.

"He is very close to our suffering."

Sources

• Time
• The Independent
• Image: The Journal

Fr Miguel Pajares, 75, died on August 12 after being evacuated from West Africa by Spain.

He was reportedly being given the experimental ZMapp drug.

Fr Pajares had been working with Ebola patients at the San Jose de Monrovia Hospital when he became infected.

He was part of the Spain-based San Juan de Dios order, which runs hospitals around the world.

More than 1000 people have died in the latest Ebola outbreak, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.

Continue reading

An air force plane from Spain was sent on August 6 to get Fr Miguel Pajares, 75, who was in West Africa doing missionary work.

The illness has claimed the lives of nearly 900 people in the region since February.

There is no known cure and no vaccine to protect against the disease.

Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding.

It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

Fr Pajares had been working in Liberia for more than five decades

When told he would be repatriated, his reaction was: "This news has lifted my spirits, it is great, I am very happy. It is worth fighting on."

Spanish authorities organised his repatriation in line with World Health Organisation procedures.

Fr Pajares belongs to the Madrid-based, non-profit organisation Juan Ciudad and the Hospital Order of San Juan de Dios, which had requested the priest's urgent transfer to Spain.

He will be treated at the Hospital Carlos III in northern Madrid, which specialises in tropical diseases.

The Spanish priest has been in quarantine at Saint Joseph Hospital in Monrovia, along with five other missionaries, since the death of the hospital's director from Ebola.

Two of the missionaries, from African nations, had tested positive for Ebola and Fr Pajares asked if they could also be brought to Spain with him.

But Spanish authorities said they are only working on a request to help a Spanish citizen.

Two Americans who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola were brought back to the United States for treatment in recent days.

Sources

• Daily Mirror
• Associated Press
• Image: Cuatro