Will COVID claim 200 million lives in the poorest of the Poor ?

A Letter from Africa

Wouldn’t it be nice, if when we look back on 2020, we see that the ‘Rich T’ (Rich T being the 3 territories that have 81.6% of the World’s wealth of North America, Europe and Chine/Japan) responded to not only their own Country’s needs, but all were generous to the Poorest of the Poor.

This letter arrived on Monday.

***

Dear Kevin.

We are incredibly grateful for all the blessings on us, but times are very hard here in The Gambia.

We ran out of normal food 2 weeks ago, and I have been feeding my girls on roots, and any scraps that I can gather.  We hear that there is a small amount of rice held here by the EU AID team, but there is not enough to feed us all.  There is also a problem with food deliveries.

We were put into lock-down 5 weeks ago, and all emergency and government services have stopped.  Some small shops can stay open, but the shelves are almost empty.  When our staple food of rice is available, the price has risen by about 50% since COVID, and the monthly wage of 1 adult here of £40 per month, just about covers the cost of our food.

There is no social security, or indeed any help from the Government, as they have no money.  Our main source of income, The Tourist trade, stopped in late February.   We do not know whether we will survive this challenge, and I am worried for my 2 girls.  We also do not know how many businesses will be able to open when lock-down is lifted, and we do not know how many jobs there will be. 

Please keep us in your thoughts and pray for us.  But everywhere I look I can see hope fading, as we just cannot see a satisfactory outcome.

Thank you for making contact, and we pray that you are kept safe in England.

With Love

Salli

***

Salli has 2 girls aged 8 and 6.  Her husband Ebrima, is in lockdown in South Korea, and again has no social security.  When he does work. he manages to send about £50 per month back home.  Salli is a nurse and took charge of the day to day financial controls within the clinic In Serrakunda (the largest conurbation in The Gambia).

The Gambia is a beautiful former colony of the UK.  Population of 5,000,000 and about the size of Wales.  It is known as the smiling Coast and is Africa’s equivalent of the Caribbean.  It is roughly level with the Canary Islands.  Africa was as prosperous as Europe until the late middle Ages and went into steep decline during the disgusting times of the slave-trade.  It has never really recovered from this era.  It could do, but would need our help to do so.  The people are also far happier than we are in the UK (or were).

Priti Patel, the Secretary for State for DfID, has syphoned off more than half of the Aid budget, to give to middle income developing countries, on the proviso that they place trade orders with us.  At the last time of reporting there was still about £2bn left in the Aid budget for 2019/20.  If we took bold action and released these funds to our former colonies this would provide desperately needed foreign currency for them to buy their staple foods for 1 month.

How many from the Poorest of The Poor are we prepared to let starve?  Is it 100million, 200 million?  2.2bn of the 7bn inhabitants of this earth, that we share, do not even have sanitation, and 1 bn do not have access to clean running water.  200 million would only be 10% of the poorest of the Poor.

Sadly, on a global basis, we are on the tipping point of a huge humanitarian disaster.  Yes, the 250,000 dying from COVID in the Rich T is not welcome news, but is 200,000,000 from the Poorest of The Poor an acceptable death rate?

Wouldn’t it be nice if the historians reporting back to this period in say 75 years, say YES, the WORLD responded, and YES, we looked after the Poorest of the Poor?

Love and Peace

Please follow my daily blogs on justaguy01705350.blogspot.com. Thank you.