YELLOWKNIFE, Northwest Territories, Sept. 18 (UPI) —
A young woman from Canada and her baby are currently stranded in Sierra Leone, the West African nation devastated by the ongoing Ebola outbreak.
Hawa Dumboya, 28, was supposed to return home three days ago but her British Airways flight was canceled. The airline is one of several to cancel flights in and out of the region.
And so Dumboya and her baby remain in Freetown, the nation’s capital, in her cousin’s apartment. After fleeing a refugee camp in Sierra Leone at the age of 16, Dumboya and her family ended up in Yellowknife, the capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Dumboya returned to Sierra Leone in May to complete her master’s thesis.
The young woman and her baby have secured a flight home via Brussels Airlines at the end of the month, but for now they’re stuck in a Freetown apartment.
The country is on lockdown this weekend, as health care workers go door to door in an attempt to locate infected residents and isolate the spreading virus. Ebola has killed 500 people so far in Sierra Leone, less than a quarter of the total number of Ebola fatalities in the West Africa.
Naturally, Dumboya’s father Amadu is worried sick.
"That’s why I’m communicating with them every day, to make sure she’s well and the baby," he told CBC News. "Sure she wants to get out but people are dying," he added. "People are dying."
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