Founder of the Lepers Aid Committee, Reverend Father Andrew Campbell, SVD, has shared startling insights into the hardships faced during the 1979 coup.
He revealed that the coup led to food shortages and a lack of essential health resources, resulting in a surge of kwashiorkor, a severe form of malnutrition, among children resulting in fatalities.
Describing the period as dire, he noted that many children succumbed to kwashiorkor due to the scarcity of medical supplies and food.
“Once, the time came in the coup 1979 and I was very much deeply involved in Princess Luwis children’s hospital. And I can distictively remember there were so many children brought in with Kwashiorkor. So many were brought in and some had died. That I remember. It was the food, things were in short and they hadn’t got the money. So things were hard for them,” the reverend father stated.