One of the more powerful aspects of movies is that sometimes they bring true stories to our attention that we have either forgotten about, or never even heard of in the first place. I’m guilty of being one of those who hasn’t even heard of this true story before. And wow… it’s a sad one.
A true story about six foreign medics in Libya who were accused and convicted of purposefully injecting 460 Libyan children with HIV. How horrific is that??? The story is even more convoluted than that, as it appears they were all innocent of the charges. This is a story I’d love to see told on the big screen… and apparently it will be. The folks over at Yahoo News give us this:
The medics, who were sentenced to death, were freed on July 24 after the European Union brokered a cooperation deal with Libya following years of complex legal and political battles. The medical workers have always maintained their innocence and said they were tortured into confessing to intentionally starting an epidemic in which hundreds of children were infected with the virus that causes AIDS while working in Libya’s second biggest city of Benghazi in 1998.
The EU, which Bulgaria joined in January, and the United Sates had pushed for the medic’s release, pointing to evidence of torture and studies showing the epidemic started before the nurses arrived at the Benghazi’s children hospital.
The story of an aids outbreak amongst children is heart breaking enough on its own… then add on top of that 6 medical personnel who only wanted to help the situation, and end up getting blamed for it and sentenced to DEATH for it. How outright horrible that must have been. This is a story that should be told, and I for one can’t wait to see it.
