Widow Appeals for Help

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Sanna Jawara and Augustus Mendy

26 May 2011

The realities revolving around the dangers associated with the perilous sea journeys embarked on by youths across Africa in search of the so-called greener pasture in Europe, have come to light as indicated in the plight of Fatou Bah, formerly called Marie Njie, who recently lost her beloved husband, Ebrima Jobe, at sea in the Kingdom of Morocco.

The middle-aged Fatou Bah, who got into the Daily Observer offices on Monday, May 23rd, with her three children, including one-year-old twins (a boy and a girl) held in her arms, said that she is a native of Dankunku Village in the Central River Region (CRR) and was married to the said Ebrima Jobe from Barra Village in the North Bank Region (NBR).

According to her, she got married to the deceased, after he made her convert from Christianity to Islam some years ago and they got three children, whose means of daily feeding become a night-mare after the death of her husband, who was the bread winner of the family. “I got information about the death of my husband few weeks ago. I was reliably informed that he was drowned at sea in the Kingdom of Morocco and the news of his death left the family in a desperate situation, as I have no one to assist me in bringing up these three children. I am not gainfully employed. I resorted to begging on the streets of the Greater Banjul Area so as to have food on the table for the three children,” Fatou Bah explained to the Daily Observer.

Further commenting on the difficult situation she and her family continue to face after the demise of her husband, she informed that she normally did not eat food for days, that all what she gathers from begging on the streets is used to feed the children so as to keep them alive. She disclosed that she had knocked on the doors of a number of institutions and individuals for help but to no avail. According to her, she even at one point contacted the SOS Children’s Village for help, but she did not succeed owing to the terms and conditions outlined for the admission of children into that Village.

Fatou Bah further pointed out that both her mother and father passed away and her brothers living in the country have refused to assist her simply because she declined to return to the Christian religion. “I was made to convert from Christianity to Islam by my husband before we got married and I took an oath between me and God, so I cannot turn down that oath despite my husband is dead. I cannot be seen changing my faith from Islam back to Christianity.

My brothers said they will not offer assistance to me unless I return to Christianity. I refused to heed their advice. I have nobody to turn to for help or to adopt my children for me to look for job. I am skillful in hair dressing; I can do it provided I have someone to keep my children. I am alone with the children throughout and I am responsible for their everything,” Fatou Bah further lamented. She therefore made an appeal to the general public for assistance in both kind and cash towards the sustenance of the children, whom she kept on roaming with searching means of survival on a daily basis.

Anyone willing to help her can dial the following numbers: 7021060 or 7336581.

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