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MADRID – Felix Sesay left his native Sierra Leone in 2016 to escape the Ebola outbreak, only to find himself helping others to survive another epidemic: COVID-19.
Now, the 23-year-old works with the Red Cross in Spain, bringing food to older people who are at greater risk of contracting the coronavirus.
“I am not afraid, because I have already survived an epidemic. I have wanted to be a doctor since I was 8 years old. When you sign up to be a medical person, you do it to save lives, and you know that that could mean putting yourself at risk, ”Sesay told VOA in a telephone interview.
When the Ebola outbreak began in West Africa in 2014, Sesay volunteered for the job that no one wanted to do: move the dead to the morgue. He was rejected by family and friends who were afraid of succumbing to the disease.
“They thought I was spellbound because I used to put the bodies in the morgue and somehow I survived,” he said.
Difficulties are nothing new
The combination of Ebola and the civil war that raged in Sierra Leone led Sesay to leave his country for a new life in Europe.
After an arduous trip to Libya, thousands of dollars were stolen from him, which he hoped to use to pay smugglers to take him across the Mediterranean Sea.
Finally, a friend loaned him money to board a flimsy boat overloaded with dozens of people trying to cross the sea in 2018.
When the boat began to sink, a helicopter emerged from the darkness and alerted the nearby Aquarium rescue ship. Sesay’s life was saved.
After Italy and other European states rejected the ship’s entry, Spain finally offered refuge to migrants in June 2018.
Sesay was one of the more than 600 immigrants who set foot on Spanish soil and started a new life doing odd jobs.
“When the coronavirus started here, I thought I could stay home or help. So, I decided to help the Red Cross, “he said.
Filling a void
Sesay works for the Red Cross in Torrent, a city near Valencia in southeastern Spain.
Ana Gómez Gómez of the agency said Sesay’s unique experience of living through two epidemics meant that he was an asset to the team.
“He worked on something like Ebola, which means he knows how to deal with the problems we have now with the coronavirus, and most importantly, he is not afraid at all,” he said.
Despite volunteering for the Red Cross, Sesay will not be guaranteed a work permit when the health crisis ends.
Hundreds of other foreign health workers living in Spain as migrants have been hampered by bureaucratic obstacles placed by the immigration services involved with the ratification of their titles.
The Solidarity action group for foreign health workers has demanded that the Spanish government speed up the process to obtain work permits.
“About 80% of the foreign health professionals who are part of this group do not have documents to work here,” said Yamile Caicedo, who is from Colombia.
According to Spanish law, work permits for foreigners can have priority if there are “reasons of public or national interest”.
However, Caicedo said, they are denied the opportunity to work because they first need to obtain temporary work permits, which can only be applied for by employers.
A spokesman for the Spanish Interior Ministry confirmed the requirement, which he said was “the law.”
“Employers should apply for them,” the spokesperson said.
Doors closing
The lives of many migrants without legal permission to work in Spain has become more difficult during the outbreak, as most survive as cleaners, cooks or beer hawkers.
With their mobility severely restricted under the blockade that was imposed in March, most seek help from charities.
Since the pandemic, the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean into Spain has decreased dramatically.
The number of migrants rescued at sea between January 1, 2020 and April 30, 2020 was 5,068, 21% less than last year’s 6,429.
“Many thousands who have applied for asylum have also suspended their applications due to the virus,” said Paloma Favieres, director of policy for the Spanish Commission for Refugees.
He called attention to a migrant detention center in Melilla, a Spanish territory in North Africa that borders Morocco, where some 1,600 people are detained in a building designed for 782, which represents a danger of contagion.
The government said the center would empty last month, but so far nothing has been done.
Frontex, the European border agency, calculated that human traffickers have made $ 172 million in the last three years sending immigrants to Spain.
