This beautiful river brought devastation

But this village by the river is no longer busy. With wild scrubland and abandoned houses, there’s an eerie emptiness.

Asubende is now known as the ‘silent village’, after hundreds of families fled in fear of a terrible disease. They have since learned that the disease, called river blindness, has left many of the villagers permanently blind.

The blackflies that are so prevalent by the Pru River carry parasitic worms. Spread by bites from infected flies, thousands of larval worms start to breed under the skin. After years of unbearable itching, they eventually reach the eyes and cause irreversible blindness.

Without treatment, every time the villagers visit the river, they risk losing their sight. Fishermen catch food from the water, farmers wade through it to reach their fields, their wives collect its water to wash their clothes, and their children play on its banks. Every day, these activities put an entire community at risk.

The threat of blindness was so severe that many people who lived in Asubende uprooted their family and moved to new towns, or started new communities elsewhere. This was not an easy decision. The people we spoke to told us: “We left our homes, everything. We had to build new houses. We were strangers and that was really difficult for us.”

Two of the villagers who remained were Mamodu and his younger brother Yeremore, unaware why blindness was affecting so many people. As farmers, the beautiful river was at the centre of their life. But with so many blackflies living there, they were soon bitten.

River blindness robbed Mamodu and Yeremore of their sight, independence and livelihood. Now, reluctantly, they rely on their already overburdened family to survive. As head of his family, this is not what Mamodu wanted as his legacy. He told us he had dreamed of being able to pass on property to his family, and that it upsets him when he thinks of all the plans he can no longer accomplish.

Mamodu and Yeremore’s 29-year-old nephew Kwame is married and has three young children to support. Now his uncles are blind, he provides for them too. He told us that when he sees his uncles struggling, “it hurts me – it pains me. They are unable to work to earn income for themselves.” Kwame is dedicated to helping his uncles and told us: “We help them with their daily living, whatever we get.”

Kwame had to drop out of school at just 12 years old to care for his uncles, and gave up a lot of his childhood and the opportunities that education would have given him. Kwame desperately wants a brighter future for his own children.

Mamodu and Yeremore are a constant reminder that Kwame and his family need treatment to stay safe – along with the hundreds of others who use the river each day.