NAN-F-18
Ebola
Dakar, Nov. 7, 2016, (Reuters/NAN) Thousands of Ebola orphans, teenage mothers and children in Sierra Leone are struggling to feed themselves and their families amid widespread food shortages in the West African nation, a British charity said on Monday.
While most families devastated by Ebola have received humanitarian aid, at least 1,400 children orphaned by the epidemic urgently need support, according to Street Child.
The world’s worst outbreak of the disease now officially over killed more than 11,300 people and infected some 28,600 as it swept through Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea from 2013.
“Teenage orphans have taken on the burden of looking after their young siblings and are struggling to cope.
“Several have dropped out of school, sacrificing their own futures to try and make sure that their brothers and sisters can stay in education.
“Sadly, running a business and a household is proving too tough for many of them,” Street Child’s Chief Executive Officer, Tom Dannatt said.
The World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had said that some 3.5 million people more than half of Sierra Leone’s population do not have enough safe and nutritious food to eat.
Food shortages in most of the country are caused by problems that predate the Ebola outbreak, according to the U.N. food agencies.
It said the number of people “severely” affected by a lack of food has increased by 60 per cent since 2010.
The shortages, which have seen the price of a bag of rice more than double since 2014, have hit orphans, teenage mothers and child-headed households the hardest, Street Child said.
The Ebola epidemic left more than 12,000 children orphaned while at least 18,000 teenage girls became pregnant during the outbreak, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). (Reuters/NAN)
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Edited by Damilola Oyewole/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu