Help Save and Restore these Ebola Heroes

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not a Liberian. I have not lived in Liberia. My only stay – a short one – in that country was a 4-day visit when I was on an International Finance Corporation (World Bank) environmental and social appraisal team’s mission to Salala Rubber Corporation’s plantation and rubber processing project on January 16-19, 2008. So I am viewing and addressing this critical issue from a disinterested distance.

The 30 corpse burners

They were the most important warriors at the Ebola warfront. They were some 30 young men. They did the unthinkable! What politicians, church, clan and traditional leaders shunned and run away from! They boldly signed up and delivered what the Liberian culture deeply despised but which was very critical in the chain of efforts to break and wipe out the source of infection via dead bodies.

And sadly when the scourge seemed to have been minimised, this group of unprecedented corpse burners were completely forgotten when the Liberian president and other Ebola-concerned members of society lined up the worthy-of-honour to be honoured. Of course, they were paid for their job – some paltry USD120/month for that tedious and self-denouncing job.

But lest I am construed to be craving for the petty, please, let it be noted that I am not only seeking recognition for these 30 people who risked everything to undertake what everyone else had retreated from at the Ebola warfront. I am calling for world attention for these 30 whose work contributed immensely to the curbing of the spread of the disease.

The cultural challenge

As a deeply religious nation and culturally married to the dead – elaborately honouring their dead – as with a national holiday – the Decoration Day – set aside to annually clean up cemeteries and re-adorn graves of friends and loved ones – cremation of the dead was strange and an unacceptable culture in Liberia except among the Indo-Liberians in the country. Liberians like other West Africans, like honouring the dead with elaborate funerals. So it was a huge cultural challenge for friends and families to have to avoid personally handling and burying Ebola victims, more so to pretend not seeing a dead relative and waiting for someone else to come and evacuate the corpse for a “dishonourable” burial. At the height of the plague in 2014 when people were just dying and being abandoned in the streets, the WHO and other health agencies working in the country convinced the Liberian government to take the cultural bull by the horn to burn dead bodies so they do not become the source of ancillary spread of the disease.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the 24th and current President of Liberia, did a bold and decisive thing by accepting the policy recommendations of the health agencies and frontally overruling culture in favour of medical needs of the country as a whole. She deserves tonnes of commendation for her action.

Thus soon the country saw itself not only officially embracing the Indian crematory in the country but actually going beyond that for mass burning on mass alters – not for Ebola gods but to ensure complete burning of corpses into ashes. This “anti-culture” responsibility was shouldered by some 30 young Liberians who accepted the challenge to do this in the fight against Ebola amidst insults and threats from members of the Liberian society. They boldly saw themselves as serving society, so they started burning corpses in tens, 20s, 30s, 50s, 70s and 100s per day as they were brought in. It was as piteous as it was overwhelming! But they were soon pierced in the ribs into depression when family members and the larger society started shunning them – calling them all sorts of names including “wicked, insensitive and evil body burners.” Their critical contribution was unappreciated by the rest of their people who mostly could not understand the scientific significance of their special role.

Bad psychological handling of the burners

But the burners were so administratively and psychologically poorly managed. Knowing that their job required the strongest of hearts and minds, authorities blinked over their indulgence in drugs and excessive alcohol intake for “psychological fortification” on the job.

In the apparent midst of pressure and urgency, no emotional and psychological capacitation training was provided the burners before their assignment. And neither did they receive any Christian training or blessing for the job despite Liberia being oversupplied with dots of churches everywhere.

Now the country is declared safe, though with some sporadic infections reported here, now and then, there seems to be an abandonment of the 30 to their fate. They are rejected by family members and loved ones almost as untouchable lepers. The country is understandably broke and struggling to cope with the devastated socioeconomic aftermath. But it is certainly unacceptable that these 30 heroes should continue to be abandoned to their fate.

Call for World Help

The threat may not have easily been appreciated by anyone sitting in comfort elsewhere far away from the then endemic zone in four West African countries. But it was scary enough if one considered the fact that the whole world was at risk as the spread of the disease was dangerously looming through travel and contact. It was precisely this real risk that attracted the WHO and other health agencies to the endemic zone, particularly to Liberia.

The USA and Britain are two countries that deserve special commendation for their invaluable role in the control of the outbreak. Their own citizens became overexposed to this fearsome scourge.

When China embarked on its one-child policy, many of us selfishly and myopically consigned it to a national need, of no consequence or significance to the rest of the world. Today, serious world socio-economic policy analysts acknowledge with respect and gratitude that China, by that singular policy action has saved the world some 400 million mouths in world population. What would the impact have been, first on China, and the world at large, if that country had not prevented the churning out of additional 400 million people onto the planet? It is from this global perspective that the work of these 30 body burners who prevented the wild spread of the disease through the dead, needs to be appreciated as having positively affected everyone’s life on the planet. If is so, as it is, then what must the world do to help these 30 Liberian body burners to reorder their lives since we appreciate the lack of capacity of the Ellen Sirleaf’s government?

I wish I could personally help, but I am too financially insignificant in that cause. I should like to humbly appeal to the governments of the USA and China to consider as a matter of urgency to make provision for training and reintegration of these neglected Ebola body burners who have done so well in helping to protect mankind. Can my friend Bill Gates’ attention be drawn to this critical call? Can anyone else help?

Ketiboa Blay, December 11, 2015