This op-ed was originally published in the New York Times

Arriving at Port Loko, one of the largest towns in the north of Sierra Leone, is like reaching a country under siege. In the face of Ebola, the 500,000 inhabitants of this district have been sealed off from the world, stigmatized like a cellblock of criminals, and left largely to fend for themselves. Even to bring them food and schoolbooks, you need a government pass. And they are not alone. Counting other districts under quarantine, more than a third of the nation cannot move freely.

There is something chillingly familiar about the fear, suspicion and desperation I saw. The military checkpoints, the closing of schools and entire towns, people begging and queuing for scarce relief food all reminded me of a childhood in the 1990s I would rather forget — one of civil war, displacement and peril. Many people told me they thought today’s Ebola crisis was worse than the war, because at least we could see or hear the enemy then.

During two weeks in late October I was on a mission to bring food and supplies to a Port Loko orphanage where 39 children and one teacher had just completed a 21-day quarantine. In those three weeks, the children received no outside help. No food. No visitors. No games. No real schooling, despite the teacher’s presence; her task was simply keeping them alive.

“I’ve got nothing for these kids,” she told me. “They have nowhere to go. There’s no food, nothing.”

Read the rest of the article on the New York Times

Chernor Bah is a youth advocate for the Global Partnership for Education and a co-founder of A World at School.