Sierra Leone Telegraph: 26 February 2015
A disturbing report from Freetown of State House complicity and cover up of allegations, involving a syndicate of senior government officials, running an operation which is harvesting and trafficking human organs and tissues removed from patients, has caused worldwide consternation and disbelief.
According to the report, a 250 kg container carrying human hearts, livers and lungs was confiscated by Security agents at the Lungi International airport in Freetown last night, as it was being prepared for loading on to a plane bound for Brussels.
The container which is also believed to contain human bloods, is the sixth known shipment of harvested organs leaving the shores of Sierra Leone for overseas markets.
The letter authorising the shipment, effectively and officially endorsing the illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs, bloods and body parts, is understood to be dated 24th September, 2014. But a police source strongly suspects that this operation has been going on for several years.
The stealing of funds meant for healing of Ebola sick is inhuman, but the harvesting and trafficking of human organs and tissues for international export is crime against humanity, and must be fully investigated by the international community.
Although the letter requesting shipment in 2014 was addressed to the minister and deputy ministers of health, it is not yet clear which State official had signed the authorisation document.
One report says that the country’s chief medical officer – Dr. Brima Kargbo had initially denied knowledge of the consignment, but later confirmed that he is indeed aware of the shipment to South Africa, for the bloods to be destroyed or stored.
But what is really baffling and incredulous is the question as to why South Africa would want to take responsibility for the disposal of Ebola blood samples, organs and tissues, given all the associated risks of importing Ebola into their country by proxy?
After all, Sierra Leone has been disposing its Ebola dead since May 2014, without any question about the risks of burying Ebola dead in the country.
So why should the government of Sierra Leone sign a contract with a South African company to send disposed blood samples of Ebola victims to South Africa for destruction? This explanation quite simply, does not add up.
Assuming that the consignment was destined for South Africa and contained Ebola blood, the question that must be asked is this:
Are the South Africans using Ebola blood for research and or the production of biological weapons?
Few readers will believe this to be the case, which therefore leaves one simple explanation: That the bloods, organs and tissues confirmed to have been found in the container have been harvested from non-Ebola patients for shipment to Brussels.
In 2008, a plane loaded with cocaine arrived at Lungi airport from Columbia for onward shipment to Europe.
When investigations were allowed to be conducted with the help of the British and American intelligence agencies, arrests were made and charges brought, which proved the involvement of very senior ruling party bigwigs.
The plane was strangely sold to the information minister – Alpha Kanu without the government going out to competitive auctioning, nor has the fee received by the government from minister Kanu ever disclosed. Proceeds from the sale too, remain a mystery. What happened to the cocaine plane – no one knows.
A report by Wiki Leaks said that president Koroma had stopped the investigation into the involvement of the minister of transport – Kemoh Sesay in the cocaine saga, whose brother was jailed for five years.
Will State House ever come clean on corruption?
In a macabre twist to this Ebola bloods airfreight saga, tonight, the country’s office for national security and the ministry of health have jointly issued this unbelievable statement to cover up the story:
SHIPPING OF SERUM SAMPLE TO THE MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILITY ( BIO-CONTAINMENT LEVEL 4 – BSL4) IN SOUTH AFRICA FOR LONG TERM SECURITYAND SAFE STORAGE.
1. The Office of National Security (ONS) in collaboration with Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) wish to draw the attention of the general public to the consignment of serum samples intercepted at the Lungi International Airport on 25th February 2015.
2. The public is hereby informed that the MOHS has confirmed that the consignment contained 2,592 (Two thousand five hundred and ninety-two) serum samples in 72 boxes by 36 vials which were bound for South Africa for safe storage and follow-up diagnostic and research investigation in the BSL4 Laboratory – the only maximum containment laboratory in Africa.
3. The shipment is done in line with an agreement between the MOHS and National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) Laboratory at Lakkah to ship the samples to the BSL4 Bio Safety Lab in South Africa for safe storage and further research.
4. The ONS therefore wants to assure the general public that the shipment is done in accordance with International Health Regulatory Standards. There is therefore no cause for alarm.
5. The safety and security of the general public is hereby assured.
End of statement
According to reliable source in Freetown, this statement is not consistent with the official response received today from senior officials at the National Ebola Response Centre, whom had expressed dismay at the discovery of the container and its contents. NERC had earlier denied any knowledge of the consignment.
What is sickeningly obvious, is that a group of unscrupulous medical staff and officials, have been helping themselves to the organs, bloods and tissues of vulnerable Sierra Leoneans under the cover of the darkness created by Ebola, for personal financial gain.
If this is not crime against humanity, then what is?
According to report from Freetown, State House, as is usual in such allegations of high profile corruption cases, has stopped the police from carrying out further investigations, after certain individuals were summoned to immediately report to the police.
Last week, it was the missing Ebola fund that was making the news headline in Sierra Leone and across the world.
Today, it is the missing body parts, bloods, human tissues and organs that have been harvested for trafficking, which is disturbingly making the news.
For many years, there have been strong suspicions in some medical circles in Sierra Leone of the inhuman and illegal harvesting and trafficking of human organs, tissues, body parts and bloods in privately run clinics that are operating clandestinely, though with official blessings from State House.
Thousands of non-Ebola patients have died in the last nine months; their bodies taken away for burial without the involvement of families.
In the cover of the darkness caused by the Ebola crisis, can the people of Sierra Leone be sure that several of those bodies have not been harvested for international trafficking?
If today’s story is proved to be true, it will be one of the biggest and most shameful corruption scandals in the world, for which charges of crime against humanity must be brought by the International Court of Human Rights against all those responsible as well as culpable.
Once again, we appeal to president Koroma to lift the blocking of the police investigations and let the investigations go wherever the evidence leads. Any attempt to cover up will be strongly rejected and exposed.
It is one thing to remove food from the mouths of sickly Ebola patients by stealing funds meant to feed them. But it is crime against humanity to harvest their organs and tissues for international trafficking.
Is this how far into the gutter officials have descended, just to enrich themselves?
Interesting how it is the senior government officials who signed the documents. Even the chief medical officer Dr. Brima Kargbo who knew what was going on, initially LIED when questioned! Can’t fix a country if it’s rotten from the core.
Please continue to keep us informed about whats going on in Sierra Leone.