TheAmerican
Senior Member
- May 4, 2014
- 148
- 33
STATEN ISLAND, New York — In Little Liberia, some 4,500 miles from where Ebola has ravaged parts of West Africa, the disease is still taking a toll. As fear and rumors spread around this enclave in New York’s Staten Island — home to the largest concentration of Liberians outside Africa — so, too, have stories of lost relatives and fracturing communities.
“I told my mom to stay away from that lady,” said Assie Jalloh, gesturing toward an apartment building near where she was picking up groceries on Targee Street in the Clifton area of the borough.
The object of her concern was a woman who recently returned from West Africa, said Jalloh, a nurse and a Sierra Leonean expat. She favors a mandatory 21-day isolation period for all travelers arriving from the affected countries.
An international crisis
Stephen Charyoe, whose mother and sisters live in Liberia, watches as Clifton residents play checkers, Oct. 1, 2014.
This lack of awareness among some Liberians has been coupled with an understaffed, underequipped health care system serving them. At the start of the outbreak, the nation of 4.3 million people had as few as 50 doctors.
Transcontinental rumor mill
As for a food ban, he said, “the rumor has no basis in fact.”
Social fragmentation
Still, the biggest concern expressed by residents Al Jazeera spoke to was the possibility that Ebola may find its way to Clifton. Like the woman Jalloh spoke of, seemingly ostracized by the community, a cloud of suspicion hangs over all those who recently traveled to West Africa, some residents reported.
Its Facebook event page reads, “Next Sunday, we go to war against Ebola.”
“I told my mom to stay away from that lady,” said Assie Jalloh, gesturing toward an apartment building near where she was picking up groceries on Targee Street in the Clifton area of the borough.
The object of her concern was a woman who recently returned from West Africa, said Jalloh, a nurse and a Sierra Leonean expat. She favors a mandatory 21-day isolation period for all travelers arriving from the affected countries.
An international crisis
Stephen Charyoe, whose mother and sisters live in Liberia, watches as Clifton residents play checkers, Oct. 1, 2014.
This lack of awareness among some Liberians has been coupled with an understaffed, underequipped health care system serving them. At the start of the outbreak, the nation of 4.3 million people had as few as 50 doctors.
Transcontinental rumor mill
As for a food ban, he said, “the rumor has no basis in fact.”
Social fragmentation
Still, the biggest concern expressed by residents Al Jazeera spoke to was the possibility that Ebola may find its way to Clifton. Like the woman Jalloh spoke of, seemingly ostracized by the community, a cloud of suspicion hangs over all those who recently traveled to West Africa, some residents reported.
Its Facebook event page reads, “Next Sunday, we go to war against Ebola.”
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