By
Alex Park
Health workers in Liberia haul away the body of a person suspected of dying of Ebola Abbas Dulleh/AP
As of this week, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is known to have
infected
more than 5,700 people and taken more than 2,700 lives. Yet those
figures could be dwarfed in the coming months if the virus is left
unchecked. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported
that the total number of infections could reach 1.4 million in Liberia
and Sierra Leone by January 2015. Though cases have been reported in
five countries, nowhere has been harder hit than Liberia, where more
than half of the Ebola-related deaths have occurred.
The outbreak has crippled Liberia's economy. Its neighbors have
sealed their borders and shipping has all but ceased, causing food and
gas prices to skyrocket. Schools and businesses have closed down, and
the country's already meager health care system has been taxed to the
breaking point.
Meanwhile, as panic grips the country, crime has risen
steadily and some reports suggest that Liberia's security forces are
among the perpetrators. To get a picture of how dire the situation is on
the ground, we got in touch with Abel Welwean, a journalist and
researcher who lives outside of Monrovia. He conducted a handful of
interviews with Liberians in his neighborhood in the second week of
September and also provided his own harrowing story of what life is like
in the country.
The outbreak has forced many Liberians to stay indoors and avoid
interacting with other people. Since the virus can be caught merely by
touching the sweat of an infected person, once-common forms of physical contact, like handshakes, have become rarer.
Frances (a university student): Football has been
suspended in our country. We are sitting at home just doing nothing—all
in the name of protecting ourselves. It is hurting us, but we have to
play the safe rules, because we value our own lives.
Abel: I don't wear
short sleeve shirts to step outside my house. I keep my children in my
yard throughout the day. I make sure we wash our hands periodically. We
do not shake hands with anybody outside of our house. We do not
entertain visitors in our house… These behaviors are very strange
amongst Liberians… Shaking hands is our one of the cultural values that
we have. Liberia may be poor and not willing to be developed, but we are
friendly people who believe in shaking hands in a special way, and
eating together from the same bowl.
Frances: Schools are closed for time indefinite. We
don't know when schools will open. We are sitting at home, watching and
praying that school will open sooner. Rumors are coming that schools
will open next year— we don't know. What I think the youth can do now is
to get on our feet and educate the common man, those that are still in
the denial stage, to sensitize them, give them the actual information
about this Ebola virus, let the youth get on their feet from house to
house, door to door, and try to inform the populace about the deadly
Ebola virus, and how it can be prevented.
Abel: I worry a lot about the future of our
children's education. I was at the verge of paying my children's tuition
when the government announced the closure of all schools in the
country. For now, I am my children's tutor at home.
"We are urging the international community
to come to our rescue, for the downtrodden, because pretty soon there
will be another war, and that will be the hunger war."
When the epidemic struck Liberia, a number of hospitals closed,
often because their staffs had fled in fear. Adding to the problem,
Ebola's symptoms mimic other, still common diseases, but treating
anything that resembles Ebola necessitates protective gear that's not
always available outside the quarantine centers. That means that many
people who are suffering non-Ebola illnesses are going untreated.
Esther (a nurse and midwife): Before, August,
September were months we had diarrhea cases in Liberia. But right now,
the symptoms of Ebola and malaria are all the same. It's very, very
difficult to know an Ebola patient from malaria, so it's very, very
difficult to treat any patient in that direction.
Frances: Many were afraid that if you have malaria,
you have common cold, you have fever, you go to the hospital, they would
diagnose you as an Ebola patient... I even got sick during the
outbreak. I was afraid to go to the hospital. I had to do my own
medication, but God looked out for me. I'm well. But these were the
messages that were going around, that once you have this, they will
confine you to a place, they will quarantine you for 21 days, they will
inject you. So many Liberians were afraid to go to hospitals. But now
the message has spread out. We now know people are surviving of Ebola.
Even if it is not Ebola, you just have malaria, you go there, you are
treated. They get you tested; they release you on time.
Brooks (an American who was working at the
Accountability Lab, an anti-corruption NGO, in Monrovia and has since
left the country): Even in July, you heard stories of pregnant women
going into labor, bleeding profusely, and not being tended do because
people were afraid of Ebola.
Esther: As a midwife, most of the time I have to do
deliveries. But right now, as we sit here, this clinic is closed. These
are cases that could be treated, but since we don't have the proper
equipment, the proper outfits to wear and treat our patients and do
tests [for Ebola], we decided to stay away from treating patients,
because you don't know who you are touching. Obviously, it's a kind of
embarrassment, but we have to go through with it for now.
Before it spread to Monrovia, Ebola struck in Lofa County,
Liberia's rice-producing center. Many farmers avoided their fields,
severely hurting domestic food production. Food imports (the country
imports about two-thirds
of its grain supply) have also been hampered because of the crisis.
Borders with neighboring countries have been closed, and shipping
companies have avoided
the nation's ports. All of that has led to the biggest increases in
food prices since the nation's civil war, which ended in 2003. In a
country where 84 percent of everyone lived on less than $1.25 per day in 2011, this shock has become its own crisis.
Esther: There were times, we were paying, for a
25-kilo [55 pound] bag of rice, we were paying something like
1,150-1,250 [Liberian dollars, or $14 to $15], but right now it's like
1,500 [$18].
John (a Liberian employee of the International
Committee of the Red Cross): I see so many people, sometimes they are
walking to town [about six miles]. Even if they have money, they prefer
walking a distance and saving the money to buy food so they will eat for
the day. We tend to be afraid to assist someone from the vehicle, even
to tell them the distance they are going, because we don't know who is
carrying the virus.
Lawrence (the Liberia country director for
Accountability Lab): Hunger is really hitting the country… If the ships
are not coming, [farmers] are not making rice, the stockpiles are
depleted…the animals are eating the crops, what happens then? The
production will decrease, the price will increase, and if you don't have
money, what is going to happen? Hunger is going to strike… This is a
serious war, without bullets.
It's not just a rise in food prices that Liberians are struggling
with; transit costs have increased as well, partly because the
government has forbidden commercial vehicles from carrying large numbers
of people. Markets have been shut down; NGOs and companies are asking
employees to stay at home; schools are closed so teachers are not
working. On September 17, the World Bank warned that Ebola could cut
Liberia's GDP by 3.4 percentage points, costing $228 million by 2015.
Esther: In my own clinic, I have a staff of twelve.
But right now, everybody has to be home until otherwise. Since we don't
have protective gear, we don't have anything to work with, we cannot
risk our own lives, because if you are not able to protect yourself, you
will not able to work with other people. It will be difficult for their
families.
Frances: It is better for us to stay at home, but we
need, also, to have our daily bread. The international community,
international donors, need to come to our rescue, because hunger is
taking over Liberia, gradually.
Abel: I have gone out of job because of the Ebola
outbreak. Before the outbreak, I had contracts with Princeton, PBS
Frontline, Nursing For All, and the Gender Ministry. All of my contracts
are on hold until the crisis is over.
The statistics are unreliable, but many report that violent crime is rising since the outbreak began. Even more troubling: some
of these crimes have reportedly been at the hands of police and
soldiers in uniform. Some Liberian's blame the government's curfew for
the problem.
John: Armed robbery is increasing because the
government placed this curfew from 9 [p.m.] to 6 AM. Before, there used
to be community watch teams. At that time, there was no curfew.
Abel: Our lives were relatively peaceful before the
deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus. We could go out any hour and return
any hour. There were robberies once in a while, but not compared to the
recent ones… I do not know if the proliferation of robberies was
political or some criminals just decided to take advantage of the
situation.
There have been numerous cases of armed robberies since the curfew
was announced… There was one in my community and my neighbors were badly
affected. I was really afraid that night when I heard the bullet sound.
At that time my family and I were watching movie in the living room. We
got scared so much that we couldn't continue the movie. We turned the
video off, turned all the lights in the rooms off and went to bed.
Fortunately for me, those police officers that came to rescue my
neighbors were my friends. They came to my house that night to see how
my family and I were doing. [Later, I learned] the robbers wore police
uniforms and were fully armed.
Esther: I was a victim about four days ago. I just
left my back door open to hang clothes in the front. By the time I was
back in, someone had snuck in and took the two phones I had charging.
Because the children are not in school, most of the young ones are
turning to crime—and not just the young ones, even people who were
working and they are not able to work now, some of them are thinking,
how do they maintain their families? They are collaborating with some of
these criminals to get their way through.
Frances: Liberia is declining, the economy is
declining, and things are just getting difficult on a daily basis. We
are not free to move around, we are not free in our own country because
of this deadly Ebola virus. We are urging the international community to
come to our rescue, for the downtrodden, because pretty soon there will
be another war, and that will be the hunger war.
