posted at the time of Mohamed’s death [Good Friday, 2009] to all friends of EducAid Sierra Leone on facebook.

Mohamed Kargbo came to live with EducAid a couple of years ago, picked up in the street by one of our students when begging for 100 Leones [2p]. He had lost his mother 3 years before and his father 3 months before and was living in an abandoned car.

We took him to live in Magbeni where AA and team did a fantastic job of looking after him and providing him with a home and family. Mohamed, bright and with a strong sense of himself, had avoided picking up the usual street habits and quickly made progress, in fact he was made prefect of his class almost immediately. He was not a saint but a very lovable rogue. He was kind to a fault - having almost nothing himself he would give gifts away to needier cases almost as soon as he received them.

Mohamed fell ill a couple of weeks ago but it took a little while to realise how serious it was. After a few days in intensive care and the conclusion from the doctors that he needed specialist care unavailable in Sierra Leone, he died quietly in the hospital.

I hope he died knowing how much he was loved. I hope he is somewhere more peaceful. I hope too that his death may be the spur that is needed to push us all into fighting the corruption that keeps Sierra Leone in such poverty; the corruption that makes it so hard for good doctors to qualify and serve in Sierra Leone; the injustice that keeps those innocent of the power games so vulnerable to this sort of terrible conclusion.

To those of you who pray, please pray for the repose of the soul of Mohamed and for justice and integrity to prevail in Sierra Leone.

Miriam

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