News from Nairobi

January 18th 2008: News from Nairobi

“Margaret is one of the AFEMA micro-credit project women living in Baba Dogo. She did no interview. Journalists are too busy with Italian tourists or local politicians, whose thirst for power is more important than dead people. Riots still go on. Margaret lost her disabled son who remained trapped inside their burning shack. But she is not an interesting subject, as all the other poor of Kenya. Yesterday 7 people died. Two of them died in Mathare Valley, the slum near our Eastleigh surgery. Politicians still have to find an agreement.
Today the situation seems to have calmed out. Before sunset everybody must be at home, or in shacks. Many people have to sleep in the open air, in schools, in churches. Schools are open again, but attendance is very low. And orphans have nothing to eat. Parents cannot afford food and medical treatments.
Mbagathi Hospital is too near to Kibera. We never know when it is possible to reach it. On Tuesday we started to operate again.
In the other part of Nairobi works have started again at Neema. Buildings are almost ready. We are waiting for equipments. The number of patients raises day by day and we need to open the hospital as soon as possible and to find donors who help us complete it."

Gianfranco Morino, Nairobi