Fear Grips Kpelle Town Residents

Residents of Kpelle Town, within the ELWA community in Paynesville, have been gripped by fear following four deaths in the town in less than a week. The residents, who are yet to come to term with the spontaneous wave of deaths, are worried over the circumstance as none of them seems to know what might happen to them next.

The death spree occurred from January 20 -24, 2013, and took away Carina Gonad, Florence Kamara, Isaacelle David and another person identified as Abraham.  The first victim was Gonad, who underwent surgery at the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia to remove a growth from the back of her forehead.

According to family sources, the victim’s children had earlier suggested to her to undergo a surgery to remove the growth but she turned down the request. But after sometimes, she reconsidered the advice following another request and went to the JFK, but after the surgery, she took sick for which she was returned to the hospital where doctors reportedly pronounced her death on Sunday, 20 January.

While residents in the community were mourning Gonad’s death, the second victim Abraham, died the following day which was on Monday, 21 January. What really killed Abraham is yet to be established, but neighbors told the media that he only complained of headache after which he passed off that same night.

As the two bodies were on hand in the community, the third person Isaacelle David died on Tuesday, 22 January. The teenager, who lost her mother during infancy, was a student of the ELWA Academy, living with his dad.

Sources from the school said Isaacelle allegedly suffered from many sicknesses, which started with running stomach before developing into growth that caused her to go for surgery four times. Her school mates believed this might have led to her death at the age of 13th and an 8th grader.

Then came Thursday, 24 of January when the fourth death occurred, involving Florence Kamara, in the same community thus, reacting panic among the residents. The cause of Florence’s death is not yet known.

However, pioneers of the community have termed the situation as unusual and spontaneous. They said this has never happened since the community was established almost 40 years ago. The residents have become apprehensive to the extent that they attend daily mass to ask for God’s intervention to safe the entire community from extinction.