-
“La terreur des enfants”
His real name is Anatole, but he’s known here as “La terreur des enfants”, or “the children’s terror”. Every morning, he sits on the stool in the blood sample room of our Paediatric Centre in Bangui, Central African Republic, and calls out the names of the children indicated by his triage colleagues. It seems that…
-
The smile of Mammoud
«Hospital in Goderich, Sierra Leone. I follow Enrico (our international orthopaedic surgeon) and Kambai (our Sierraleonese physician) in their visit to all our patients. Mammoud immediately catches my attention; I have already seen him going around the hospital in these days, and I have been wondering what had happened to him. Mammoud is here since…
-
The new First Aid Post in Waterloo
In the two months while our new First Aid Trauma Post (FATP) was being built in Waterloo, Sierra Leone, the news of the imminent opening of the clinic quickly spread throughout the area: this, too, is a sign of just how much it’s needed. The confirmation came on Monday, just a few minutes after we’d…
-
The Central African Republic is in need of peace and hope
The Pope’s visit to the Central African Republic is an important event for all of those who, like EMERGENCY, have been working in the country for years. Finally, media attention will be drawn to the country that went through an horrendous civil war which is still a real menace for the civilian population. As in…
-
Remedial classes for the hospitalized children
In our hospital, the concept of “care” goes beyond the medical act. It also means, for example, schools for children who have to stay there as in-patients for long periods of time. Like in Sierra Leone, where each afternoon two primary school teachers come to our Centre to hold remedial classes for the children staying…
-
Violent fighting in Bangui
After a period of relative calm, violent skirmishes have been breaking out once again in most of the capital Bangui since last Saturday. The climax of the tension led to more than 100 wounded and around 30 killed. At the Complexe Pédiatrique we took in 6 children with injuries from fire-arms. One boy was in…
-
Fighting in Bangui yet again
After a truce lasted a couple of weeks, fighting started again yesterday in Bangui. A couple of miles from our Paediatric Centre, there have been new clashes between international forces and the Anti-balaka. In the evening, at the Complexe Pédiatrique, the public hospital where we work, we received two children with gunshot wounds. A 5-year-old…