Starved ‘witch boy’ begins school a year after being rescued

In January 2016, Danish charity worker Anja Ringgren Loven rescued a malnourished toddler wandering around the streets of Nigeria. His family had ostracized the boy thinking he was a “witch.” For several months, he managed to surviv by eating leftovers on the streets.

Saddened by what she saw, Loven posted a photo of the boy sipping from a bottle of water, which elicited thousands of likes and shares from Facebook users. She named the young boy “Hope” as a reminder that all neglected children can still hope for a brighter future ahead of them.

Today, Loven reflected on Hope’s transformation from being a nutrition-deficient child to a healthy boy who is now ready to enter school.

“On the 30 of January 2016, I went on a rescue mission with David Emmanuel Umem (her husband), Nsidibe Orok, and our Nigerian team. A rescue mission that went viral, and today it’s exactly 1 year ago the world came to know a young little boy called Hope,” she captioned her re-created Facebook photos of Hope back in 2016 and today.

“This week, Hope will start school,” she added. Her Facebook post went viral for the second time around with 34,000 likes and 7,500 shares as of Tuesday.

Independent reported that Hope lives with 35 Nigerian children in an orphanage operated by Loven and Umem. She also founded African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation in the country to shelter children who were abused and starved by families adhering to superstitions and witchcraft.

“I traveled to Nigeria where I met children who have been tortured and beaten almost to death because they were accused of being witches and there left alone on the street,” she told Huffington Post UK last year. “Being rejected by your own family must be the loneliest feeling a child can experience, and I don’t believe that anyone can imagine how that must feel like.”  Gianna Francesca Catolico