Betrayed On My Wedding Eve Chapter 26

Betrayed On My Wedding Eve Chapter 26

The violence escalated.

Ebola hit the country alongside everything else.

By spring Julian was stretched across two posts: the refugee camp and the Ebola treatment center.

Then armed groups began targeting the treatment centers directly. MSF physicians started pulling out.

Julian refused to leave.

The Goma facility was still relatively stable. And there were nearly a hundred patients. If everyone walked out, they’d die in their beds.

He and four other doctors stayed. Held their ground.

Then the armed groups sealed off Goma’s outskirts and cut the roads.

We were stuck.

In the middle of it, Julian sent me a message. Come to the center.

He was vague about why. I already felt it.

We put on protective gear and went into the medical waste processing unit.

In a cleared-out back room: fourteen Hutu children.

Fled from the mountains. The oldest was twelve. Clothes in shreds. Infected wounds all over them.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The armed fighters holding the outskirts were Tutsi. Blood enemies of the Hutu going back decades. If these children were found, the entire treatment center would be destroyed.

“Julian. Are you out of your mind?”

“You know MSF’s principles. You can’t take sides in an armed conflict.”

He kept his head down.

“I know this is dangerous. I’m just asking: do you have any contacts? Any organization that could take them?”

“Even if someone would, how do you get them out of Goma? The checkpoints are everywhere.”

He spoke fast.

“They’re small. They could fit in the medical waste containers in protective gear. The disposal truck comes every three days. No one opens those containers. If someone is ready to take them on the other side, we can save them.”

I stood there.

He clenched his fists.

“Lena. I’m a human being first. Then a doctor. Then an MSF doctor.

“I can’t throw them out to die.”