The Washington Post
ANGUISH
Mariama Jalloh faints as she mourns her sister Fatmata, 18, who delivered her first child with the help of a neighborhood nurse in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Sept. 19, 2008, but developed complications. Eight hours later she lay dead on a rusting metal gurney in a damp hospital ward, a scrap of paper with her name and "R.I.P." taped to her stomach. She bled to death. Fatal outcomes could be prevented with basic medical care, which is often absent after a decade of civil war that decimated an already fragile infrastructure. Sierra Leone has highest rate of maternal mortality in the world where 1 in 8 women die in childbirth. It is a silent killer, veiled from world concern.
