£103,000 donated to rescued ‘witch’ toddler in two days

Lovén giving water to the child

AFTER heartbreaking series of photographs showed an emaciated two-year-old Nigerian, riddled with worms and reportedly abandoned by his family because they thought he was a witch, help has come for the rescued toddler. He had lived on the streets for eight months, surviving on scraps and whatever he could find, before being discovered by Anja Ringgren Lovén, the Danish founder of the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation.

She then wrapped the boy in a blanket and took him to the nearest hospital. After two days of care, she wrote that his condition had greatly improved.
“He’s taking food for himself, and he responds to the medicine he gets.
“Today, he has had powers to sit up and smiling at us. He’s a strong little boy. To see him sit and play with my own son is without doubt, the greatest experience of my life! I just don’t know how to describe it in words,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
Immediately the heartbreaking photos went viral, it has garnered over a £100,000 in donations, while highlighting the issue of superstition across the country.
The boy, dubbed Hope, was found emaciated and abandoned after being accused of being a witch. Anja Ringgren Lovén, an aid worker from Denmark, shared the photos on Facebook, saying, “Thousands of children are being accused of being witches and we’ve both seen torture of children, dead children and frightened children.
After adding that Hope was in hospital and that donations were being accepted to help his recovery, over one million Danish kroner (around £103,000) was donated in two days.
The full story of what happened to Hope is not clear, but it seems that he is one of many young children in the country who are accused of being witches, then tortured, cast out or killed as a result.