Doris Benjamin, a sickle cell patient and advocate, has recounted how her pain and that of her three other siblings weren’t taken serious by relatives.
This, according to her, led to the death of her elder sister, Elle, who their maternal relatives accused of being a witch due to her constant crisis.
“Years ago, people didn’t really know about the disease so my mother’s relatives who we were staying with never took it serious and accused my sister of being a witch while she was in pain,” she told Afia Amankwa Tamakloe on Adom TV’s M’ashyase3.
Doris disclosed during one of Elle’s crisis, their relatives locked her up in an uncompleted building at Anomabo and demanded she confessed before they could render any help.
“We are four children and all of us have sickle cell disease but our mum was also in Nigeria working so we didn’t really get much help. My elder sister begged them she wasn’t a witch but nobody listened.
“She was locked without food and water for two days and died within the period. But for the stench that emanated from the room, they wouldn’t have even gone to check up on her. We were very helpless as children,” she sadly recounted.
Amidst their pain, Doris said she and two younger siblings were ordered to go and dig a grave for the burial without the family even informing their mother.
“It was a Sunday and one of the most difficult days of our lives. My mum came home a year later during Easter and was taken to the graveside.
“She was really disappointed and broken as she could not fathom why her own relatives could do that to her and moved us to Nigeria to stay with her,” she said.
