Two Bronx preteens from Senegal were beat up and called "Ebola" on their school playground.
Amadou and Pape Drame were born in New York, but raised in Senegal. Their father Ousmane Drame, who is a teacher and raising the two boys on his own, moved back to New York (where he previously lived for 25-years) with his sons about a month ago so they could get a good education, reports New York Post.
On Friday Ousmane got a phone call that no parent ever wants to hear.
"They call me from the school, tell me come, they're beating your children," Ousmane tells NY Post. "I rush, go there, and my children were very hurt. Amadou was crying, laying on the floor, more than 10 children on top of him, beating him."
The kids at school who were beating up Amadou, 11, were calling him "Ebola" and telling him, and Pape, 13, who stepped in to help his younger brother, to "go back home," Ousmane tells NY Post.
This wasn't the first time Ousmane says his kids were stigmatized in school.
"If they go to the gym, they say, 'Oh, you don't play. Don't touch the ball,'" Drame tells NY Post. "'You have Ebola. Sit down there.' For two days, they don't touch nobody, they just sit down."
Although Senegal is in West Africa, the country saw less cases of the Ebola virus during this outbreak than the U.S. and have since been declared Ebola-free, according to the World Health Organization.
Senegal saw one case of Ebola and no deaths during this outbreak. The outbreak was declared over in the country on Oct. 17, WHO previously reported.
So far the U.S. saw five cases and one death during the outbreak.
