Bad News From South Africa

On the 26th of February I received a text then an email from Khanya telling me that she had been mugged at gunpoint, by two men, outside the hospital where she and and a little boy who Nancy cares for had gone to collect his all important Anti Retro-viral drugs for his HIV condition.

The men took the drugs and Khanya's bus fare home. She went back into the hospital but they said as the mugging took place outside their premises they could not help and the police said that as this happens frequently there was nothing they could do either and were not helpful at all.

Khanya went on to tell me that six of the children who are sponsored by people here in England have had their shacks broken into and their Anti Retro-viral drugs stolen.

The hospital will not replace the stolen drugs because of the amount which are regularly stolen and the expense of the drugs.

Nancy told me that to replace the drugs costs £70 per child per month and of course she has not got the money to do that but the children must not miss a single dose of the drug as it is life saving so she was extremely worried.

I am very shortly sending money to Nancy so she will be able to replace the drugs for the children and she is hoping to arrange to keep the drugs in her house rather than in the broken down shacks which are so easy to break in to and she will give the drugs to the children each day.

Life for Nancy and the children is full of difficulties and Nancy says the children live in constant fear of break-ins, floods and fires. It seems so wrong that little children should be so frightened on a daily basis.