NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

“How is it that we have again become the marginalized of the earth?” That is what people ask Bishop Anthony Borwah of Gbarnga, in Liberia, the country most affected by the outbreak of Ebola.

Recalling that the west African country is still recovering from a pair of civil wars that lasted from 1989 until 2003, Bishop Borwah told Time magazine recently, “the poor are again asking the existential questions that predominated during the civil war: Where is God? What evil have we done again? How is it that we have again become the rejected of the earth?”

Bishop Borwah shared that “a relative of mine who survived Ebola committed suicide, because the people avoided him, and he no longer felt wanted by anyone.”

The stigmatization of those who survive Ebola is marked in Liberia and its neighbors, due to a lack of education.