Aid Workers Juggle Ebola and Bullets as Crises Multiply
By Makiko Kitamura
Bloomberg.com
Sep 16, 2014
Sean Casey spent two weeks in the war-torn steppes of eastern Ukraine before racing to Sierra Leone and Liberia, where an even greater emergency awaited.
Casey uses one word to sum up his job for customs officials: humanitarian. The busy pattern of stamps in his frayed passport depicts his workplace: a world in crisis.
An emergency-response team director for the aid group International Medical Corps, Casey now travels dirt roads between Liberia’s capital Monrovia and the dense jungle of Bong County four hours away to help coordinate the construction of an Ebola treatment center.
As President Barack Obama prepares to send 3,000 U.S. troops to fight the Ebola outbreak, humanitarians say they’re juggling a record onslaught of crises from Africa to Syria that have stretched their resources and their ability to help those on the ground. Patients with symptoms are turned away daily in Monrovia because health centers are overwhelmed, according to the World Health Organization.
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