On Monday 10 November, the Frontline Club hosted a preview screening of Liberia – Living With Ebola, the first episode in Al Jazeera’s latest series of Africa Investigates. The film documented the impact of Ebola on those at the front line of the disease in Liberia, focusing on the communities worst hit and the healthcare workers who run the Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) and take away the highly infectious bodies of the dead.

The film was presented by Sierra Leonean reporter Sorious Samura, whose intimate understanding of the culture and people provided a glimpse into the fight against Ebola not explored by Western journalists.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with Samura, the film’s director Clive Patterson and the evening’s host, Channel 4’s Tom Clarke, who had himself recently returned from covering the Ebola story in Sierra Leone.

“The strength of [the film], is it’s about Liberia living with Ebola. . . . The thing we forget is that the solution to it is how countries are living with it, managing it,” said Clarke in his opening statement.

One of the main issues that the film tackled was how the combination of corruption and government mistrust helped to fuel the outbreak.

“Millions of pounds have poured into that country to help build the health structure, the schools. Where has that money gone?” Samura asked. There were some tough questions about who was to blame for the aid black whole that left Liberia and Sierra Leone so unprepared for the outbreak.

“There is a level of negligence there on the part of Western donors who basically allowed Liberia to get away with the requirements when it came to healthcare,” said Patterson.

Naturally this raised questions about the postcolonial relationship between Africa and the West. What is the best way to tackle Ebola without falling into the discourses of old?

Ultimately the responsibility to tackle corruption lies with the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Samura told the audience. And he has started to see that change in how the people of Liberia have begun to ask questions in a way they never would have before.

“I grow up in Sierra Leone and we don’t look at people in their eyes when they talk. People of authority, we don’t ask questions. But now we have like emails from Sierra Leoneans asking questions,” Samura said.

But have we not learned anything from any of the other diseases that have afflicted Africa, an audience member asked?

“These governments that we have in place, first of all they were never prepared, they don’t know what to do when it came and they, perhaps, will not even know what to do when the NGOs have packed and left,” said Samura.

It is clear that controlling the spread of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone is only the first part of the story, and once the initial crisis has passed there are a lot of questions that will need to be answered about why people still don’t trust their government, and why aid money still doesn’t make it to the ground.

Emmy- and BAFTA-winning reporter from Sierra Leone, Sorious Samura joins Liberian investigative reporter, Mae Azango, to reveal the inside story of the Ebola outbreak from the worst hit country – Liberia. Bringing an African perspective to the devastating spread of the virus, they reveal not only the heroic efforts being made by teams on the front line, but also the deep anger and mistrust held by Liberians towards their government in this time of crisis.

Furious health workers rage against the authorities for cuts in their pay, while their colleagues continue to die at an alarming rate. As belated international support finally pours in, Samura discovers the hidden impact of the outbreak. This timely and challenging film offers an inside view of a country living with Ebola.

Directed by Clive Patterson
Duration: 24
Year: 2014

In the wake of the Kony 2012 campaign that went viral attracting more than 100 million viewers, for BBC Panorama, BAFTA-winning reporter Sorious Samura travelled to the frontline of the battle to bring Joseph Kony to justice. The result is an incisive and often shocking documentary that asks why, after more than two decades, has the brutal leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) not been found?

Leading a small group of fighters calling itself the Lord’s Resistance Army, composed of many abducted children turned child soldiers, he is responsible for the death of more than 100,000 people, and the displacement of millions more. Sorious Samura traces more than 25 years of violence, interviewing Kony’s victims, his former LRA fighters and those who hunt him.

In a Q&A following the screening, reporter Sorious Samura, producer Andrew Bell and Ron McCullagh of Insight News TV shared their experiences, and the moments which could not be included in the final cut. When Bell was asked what he thought about the the failure to catch Kony, he said that “tracking him in the jungle is useless […] the only way to get his people out of that jungle is through hearts and minds”.

Samura weighed in, suggesting that he escaped punishment for so long because “for a lot of Ugandans, this man is seen as a hero. We shouldn’t try to hide this fact”. McCullagh added that  “for lots of them, Kony was not a mad man”. Referring to Kony’s claim he is guided by spirits, Bell also warned that “many totally believe he is plugged in to the spirit world”.

However, keeping the panel on its toes, a young graduate from the audience warned against over-simplifying the role of traditional beliefs in Kony’s survival, a point with which Samura concurred, asking “where does the West come from to judge other people? […] You never hear Africans calling the holy trinity crazy”.

The audience then returned to the issue of corruption, asking whether the West was too soft on African governments. One audience member asked whether the West needed “to change the way it does business with Africa?”. Samura answered “The West needs to say enough is enough: We will not give you any more money until you sort yourselves out”.

Bell reflected part of the problem was that African governments were abandoning their own people. He cast a chill on the room, recalling how on location.“I was brought to a group of children or teenagers sleeping rough under some containers. Their parents had been killed, they had nothing to do. My guide told me ‘the next Kony is sleeping under that container’ […] These kids are going to come back to haunt them”.

The first of our Film Africa screenings, celebrating the best African fiction and documentary films across the continent, is El Problema, while on Friday Sorious Samura and Anas Aremeyaw Anas will be at Frontline Club for the launch of Africa Investigates. 

Next week we will be joined by The Guardian‘s Jonathan Steele to discuss the craft of the foreign correspondent and a 40-year career that has seen him cover events across the world.

Don’t forget to join us for our November Club Quiz on Thursday evening.

Follow us on Twitter and catch up on any events you missed on the Forum blog or download our podcasts on iTunes.
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