A child health advocate in Sierra Leone, Ishmeal Alfred Charles, has received multiple death threats for asking the president to fix the country’s extremely weak healthcare system.
The founder of the Sick Pikin Project, an initiative that uses crowdfunding to send hundreds of critically sick children from Sierra Leone to India and other countries for treatment, said supporters of President Julius Maada Bio have been threatening to kill him and eliminate his family.
Overwhelmed by the high numbers of parents approaching him and asking him to raise funds to treat their sick children abroad, Charles has become more vocal in his call for a functional healthcare system. He criticizes the president and his family for going abroad for their medical needs while Sierra Leone’s healthcare remains broken.
“If our president feels sick and went to the local hospitals, that would change the dynamics a lot, instead of him going abroad with his family,” he says. “We have a situation where a government official or someone in their family is sick with a very minor complication that requires one or two thousand dollars, but they will get $10,000 to fly overseas and get treated.”
President Bio’s supporters see such criticism as pitting the public against the government. Some threaten to kill him and destroy his family. Prime Progress analyzed some WhatsApp voice notes the president’s supporters sent to Charles, who continues to change his location within the country for his safety.
“You are a coward, Ishmeal. What are you running for? You should not run, since you want to talk and make your mouth busy for other man’s affairs,” said one supporter. “Your family is here. We are harassing them. We will make sure they go down and kill them all. We are hunting them anywhere they are…. We own this country and this government.”
In another voice note, a supporter sounded as though he had just left Charles’ home in Sierra Leone, where he had hoped to meet and kill him.
“Charles, you think you are smart. You think you can play on our intelligence. If I had met you today, it’s today you would have met your maker and told him the story,” he said. “But you were lucky I didn’t meet you. Wait, we will teach you a lesson. Where do you think your family is? You will regret it.”
The true state of Sierra Leone’s healthcare system
Bio has been the West African country’s president since 2018 after campaigning with a manifesto themed “Human Capital Development”, which promised health security, food security, and education.
While his administration claims to have achieved so much in healthcare, especially boasting that the government introduced malaria and HPV vaccines and maintained “over 90% coverage of key childhood vaccines,” the country’s healthcare system remains largely broken.
Years of economic mismanagement and corruption are largely responsible for the country remaining the world’s fourth poorest country despite having a small population of 8.5 million and possessing abundant natural resources like gold, diamonds, iron ore, coltan, and platinum.
For over 10 years, including Bio’s seven years, annual budgetary allocation for healthcare has hovered between 5% and 7%, way below the 15% African leaders agreed on in 2001.
Most hospitals in Sierra Leone remain ill-equipped and incapable of handling complex health problems as the country battles a very high child mortality rate at 94.3 per 1000 live births, almost 200% above the global average amid skyrocketing inflation.
Charles believes medical tourism among government officials, including Bio and his family, is hurting the country’s health system. This is why he has been advocating for the first family to have their health problems handled in Sierra Leone instead of flying to high-income countries for minor health problems.
What he did not expect was people close to the president threatening to eliminate him and his family for fighting for all Leoneans.
“I feel sad and worried, especially as someone who is trying to make life easy for other citizens. No one should suffer because they want to help. I have received voice notes and phone calls from numbers that I don’t know threatening to hurt me and my family,” he says.
“The only reason [they are after me] is to silence dissident voices. State parties don’t like dissident voices. They feel that you should just not speak. And they like to have everyone under control and make it look like everything is going right even when it’s not.”
Charles, a former child soldier (during Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war) turned humanitarian, says his pain has doubled by the current risk his family faces.
“I am someone who has been hurt before, and I understand what it means to suffer. My family is the only riches that I have in this life, and I cannot put them on the line for any reason. I spend a lot of time serving humanity. I don’t even spend much time with my family. They suffer for not having me always when they would need me,” he says.
“Sometimes even my little boy will say, ‘It’s Saturday again,’ and he is always looking for a reason to go out, even on holidays.’ I will go out and work if there is disaster or a sick child I need to raise money for. Making sacrifices just to meet the needs of society at the expense of my family, so my family should not be suffering the way they are right now.”
Summary not available at this time.
