FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) – Seven-year-old Ali Mansaray must build a new life for himself after surviving the mudslides and flooding that killed nearly 500 people, including his parents, in Sierra Leone last week.
Now he is being looked after by his grandmother, who was spared because she was sleeping at a friend’s home the night of the Aug. 14 disaster.
“The boy’s mother and father are dead. Zainab and Idrisa gave birth to him, both of them are dead now, even our neighbors,” a grieving Emma Mansaray told The Associated Press. “Only God saved me because I did not sleep there.”
Ali is among hundreds of children who have lost one or both parents to the mudslides in this impoverished West African nation’s capital. Many children have no family members left alive. The children now line up for food rations at temporary shelters, with few hopes that any survivors will be found among the estimated 600 people missing.
Charities in Sierra Leone are grappling with how to help the hundreds of children who have lost parents. It is particularly difficult in a country where just two years ago a deadly Ebola outbreak decimated many families.