Quarantined residents cry for relief #liberia

Rose Cooper an elderly woman stood in the
midst of a crowded but tensed Dolo's Town community
market hall, holding tight her grandson as a humanitarian
group unloaded food and water for quarantined residents
Monday. Ms. Cooper said she has not benefited from the
gesture because she has been suffering from toothache over
the last eleven days something that made it difficult for her
as a struggling widow to obtain food supplies provided by
humanitarian groups and government in their area.
Ms. Cooper said the quarantine imposed on them by the
Liberian government on August 20, 2014 is seriously
stalling activities. Dolo's Town and West Point
communities were quarantined by the Liberian government
as part of efforts to curb the spread of the deadly Ebola virus
in the country. Residents of West Point, one of the largest
slum communities in Liberia witnessed a relief last
Saturday from the quarantine leaving Dolo's Town in
Margibi County with a population of over twenty four
thousand inhabitants the only area suffering from the
government's decision.
Since the imposition of the quarantine, food, health care,
and other basic social services are lacking in the
community, but citizens are yet to stage violent protest in
the area like West Point which experienced brutal
demonstration leaving a fifteen year old boy dead and
several others wounded. Ms. Cooper believes that it is time
that government lifts the quarantine imposed on them as
they have gone out of money to buy medication and food,
stressing that the situation is worsening in the area on a
daily basis.
"Some of us, we get nothing to do, for us to go hassle and
sell for people them. For us to get our daily bread and to do
small, small thing, there is no way. We just in the fence,
when we want go this man them (pointing to securities
officers) sometimes they will say we must not go.
Sometime some of them will sorry for us, some of them can
look at us and slap our jawbone them, but we can talk
anything bad about them because that them guiding us
here" Ms. Cooper lamented.
Like Ms. Cooper other residents are feeling the pinch and
are requesting the government to lift the quarantine. The
Mayor of Dolo's Town Emmanuel Fartuma, Sr. believes that
quarantine is not the best solution in curtailing the deadly
Ebola virus and has at the same time called on the
government to provide medicines for his people.
"As a mayor and person who have gone through the study
this few days, large quarantine does not suite the solution.
It is better to take the people from the particular area and
quarantine that particular family than quarantine the whole
area, I don't see as a method that can work effectively", said
Mayor Fatuma.
"Let government provides enough medicine for those areas
that are quarantined and for those patience that are found in
the area. We need quick ambulances, quick response to
those person". Mayor Fatuma described the issue of
medicine as a major concern in the area. Several residents
of the Dolo's Town feel that government is practicing what
they described as 'pick and choose' stressing that because
they have not been violent like residents of west point
therefore the government is not thinking of lifting the
quarantine imposed on them.
Harris Tarnue: "The same way they do west point I want the
same thing happen here, the people must free us. We don't
have nothing to do, we only hustle on our own self no one
helping us here so we want to do small, small hustling in
the market. I don't have nothing to hustle on the people
keeping us here, we can get our own self food when we
come for food the people can drive us, say you go, you go
so we suffering. I am a family man with four children and is
a mechanic, no chance to work when I get on the road the
people can put a kick in bucktock... And say you get from
here".
Another Dolo resident only identified as Emmanuel also
expressed similar frustration. "I want to appeal to the
government and the UN at large, let them try to release us
so we can get to a job, I work in a supermarket and the
people send us home for 21 days and in the 7th day, we
were able to be again quarantine and I find it difficult for my
family. It is difficult because as a hustler you have to go out
there. Liberia as whole we are hustling, so you need to go
out there you cannot tied a living person in a cave or in a
place like here and say you find it find.
An elderly man who refused to be identified by name said
food is a major problem for them.
"Since this thing happen, we are in a cave I can say jail,
from that time, this is Peter's town we can get nothing to
eat, and we can go nowhere now. Now the people dividing
rice in Dolo's Town we can say they will mean us, but we
never see nothing yet. So I feeling somehow, all of our
children they lay down, now they don't even want to go
there to get food". Deputy Information Minister Isaac
Jackson at a news conference Monday said the government
is still studying the quarantine imposed on Dolo's Town, in
Margibi County.