This is Abs
He’s got malaria. Can you help him, please?
Abs is a connection of mine in West Africa. I’m poor. He’s dirt poor. His brother, Baba, recently tried to make a break for a better place out of their home country, The Gambia, by crossing the Sahara Desert to Algeria. In Algeria, Baba was attacked and beaten severely. Some who crossed the Sahara with him had no shoes, but they got taken in by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who are flying him back home to The Gambia. The Gambia is not in a political crisis, but it is no easy slog when you’re on the bottom rung. Their lives are worth every bit as much as ours. Except, they can’t afford the bill.
Abs has caught malaria. It is an endemic disease in Africa and prevention does exist in the form of drugs. However, ordinary Gambians, like Abs, cannot obtain preventive medicine against malaria even if they had the money, because it is in such short supply that it gets sold at greatly higher prices to people like westerners travelling to the continent on holiday. Abs now has the disease and, given that fact, could go and get medicine to cure him, but he doesn’t have the cash.
I’ve helped Abs out on a number of occasions over the years. I wondered: could you help him out this time?
He’s on WhatsApp, telephone number +220 (for The Gambia) 214 5714, his name is Abdourahman Nyum. Tell him I asked you.
Thank you.
An update for anyone passing: 100 euros was duly raised and remitted to The Gambia, where the patient himself was able to purchase and secure the administration of two injections in his rear end. He is doing well. His brother has been duly returned home by UNHCR and is also recovering from his ventures into the unknown.
In the wealthy West we regard such matters as foolhardy and easily resolved. Which they are, on the whole, for us. But, for our friends in Africa, they are matters of life and death.
Graham, I’m sure I’m asking you the obvious: how do I know it’s not a scam? I’d be glad to help, but I’ve heard about a hundred stories of scams like this. Apologies if you think it’s the wrong question, I’m sure you know it wasn’t my intention.