Transformed lives

Josephine had four children when she discovered she was pregnant with a fifth. Despite the fact that she had a C-section in the local...

Fatmata, a fourth-grade student, faced some monumental problems that no thirteen-year-old should have to face. She left school to give...

Sometimes, I would just sit down and cry,” said Sally with great emotion. For 17 years, people laughed at her and mocked her because...

“Doing ten [cataract surgeries] a day, I thought I was the best eye surgeon in the world,” said Dr. Ayo Bello. But then he met Dr....

Sierra Leone’s violent 10-year civil war devastated its people and left the country in shambles and deeper poverty.

A healthy baby girl at birth, Namina Yillah suddenly began to see swelling in her face at 18 months old. One morning the swelling...

The villagers called Abdul the “devil child” because of his deformed, curled-in feet. Although abandoned by his mother, Abdul’s father...

Fatmata sat quietly in the admissions tent cuddling her 16-month-old daughter in her lap. She had been searching for over a year for...›› read story

Babies born with deformities in West Africa often start life as victims of the West African superstition that abnormalities are signs...›› read story

Josephine’s parents were scared. Their two-year-old had inhaled something that seriously affected her breathing. David and Judith...›› read story

FOOTBALL! Just the mention of the word grabbed the attention of four-year-old Espoir. Espoir is a bright and very active little boy...

Abla, a woman living in Togo, West Africa, has been pregnant seven times. Seven stillborn babies. Seven crushing disappointments.

Amavi and her baby sister, Kossinovi, are from a family of eight children. They share a distinctive characteristic – they were both...

For 30 years, Akuavi suffered with an expanding growth over her right eye that no scarf could adequately cover. The problem began as a...

Bagnangui, the carpenter, is a gentle man from north Togo who suffered stoically for 16 years with disfiguring growths.

Imagine your world being torn apart in an instant. You are orphaned, homeless and alone. Too young to work. Too weak to beg for food....

Akissi is a spirited teenager. Her gleaming white teeth brighten her contagious smile. Some things get lost in translation, but not...

Growing up with backwards legs, 11-year-old Abel refused to let deformity stop him from being a goalie. Now, with straightened legs,...

Five-day-old Kossi won’t remember the surgery on his tongue onboard the Mercy Ship that saved his life, but it is one day that his...

Baby Claudine’s mom waited for her newborn to open her eyes. But nothing happened and the doctors could offer no reason why the baby...

Seven-year-old Aissa weighed 11 kg when she arrived onboard the Mercy Ship where a team of maxillo-facial surgeons reconstructed her...

More than anything, nine-year-old Christian wanted to play football and learn to read. Now he can do both, thanks to free cataract...›› read story

Lawson was facing starvation because of tumour growing in his mouth. That was until he came to the Africa Mercy.›› read story

Baby Oceane underwent a complicated operation to remove a "second head" resulting from a birth defect. She's now living life to the...

Oscar and his mother Florentine sit together in the Africa Mercy ward before Oscar’s surgery. “I felt a very, very big pain in my...

Dignity restored to a West African teenager

Baby Maomai would have probably died of suffocation had not Mercy Ships doctors intervened with vital surgery.

Three young brothers and sister whose lives were blighted by cataracts regained the gift of sight.

It was hard for the crew on board the Anastasis to forget Alfred. As a 15-year old, he had travelled with his father to the port of...

Kotiam thought there was no way out of his condition. That was until he heard about some foreign doctors operating for free…

Three-year-old Maurel, from Benin, sleeps in a hospital bed onboard the Africa Mercy. His mother, René, sits calmly next to him,...

Janviera remembers the afternoon poignantly – it was a Thursday, 23 October 2008. She recalls her children coming home from school a...

Story of Odilon Baby Odilon was left starving because a cleft lip and palate prevented him from feeding. Onboard the Africa Mercy,...