The Toddler Who Was Abandoned For Being A Witch Gets Ready For First Day At School

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Life is seldom easy to the less fortunate and it’s always sad to hear that people live in bad conditions. This is why its always great to hear a story with a happy ending – like this one.

You may remember a few rather disturbing pictures spread across the internet last year, which showed a starving African child who was abandoned by his parents after they suspected him of being a witch.

The pictures showed the emaciated boy, who was named “Hope”, being attended to by Anja Ringgren Loven, a Danish woman living in Africa. These terrible images broke many people’s hearts.

Anja in fact adopted Hope and cared for him as his Mom. She had to take him to the hospital to get medication to remove the worms from his stomach and he also had to receive blood transfusions.

Now, one year later, Hope is almost unrecognizable from the boy in the pictures taken last year. Almost $1 million has been donated to paid his medical bills. Hope has now been transformed back into a healthy, normal toddler. He’s even ready to start school!

In an emotional Facebook post, Anja wrote:

“On the 30th of January 2016 I went on a rescue mission with David Emmanuel Umem, Nsidibe Orok and our Nigerian team.  A rescue mission that went viral, and today it’s exactly one year ago the world came to know a young little boy called Hope. This week Hope will start school.”

She added “Thousands of children are being accused of being witches and we’ve both seen torture of children, dead children and frightened children,”

“With all the money, we can, besides giving Hope the very best treatment, now also build a doctor clinic on the new land and save many more children out of torture.” Anja said. 

Many humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF, UNHCR, Save The Children and Human Rights Watch have all drawn attention to the abuse towards kids accused of witchcraft. They say that the accusation of witchcraft in Africa is a very serious matter as the witch is culturally seen to be the epitome of evil and the cause of misfortune.