When Fatumata developed a fever in late August, the hospital where her father took her diagnosed malaria, a common illness at the time, and sent her home with only paracetamol syrup.

Fatumata died a week later. He was two years old. He was one of 69 children who died in the Gambia in the past three months due to acute kidney failure.

Adding to the anguish voiced by the country’s residents on social media is anger: at the foreign pharmaceutical industry, which may be responsible for the deaths of children, at the collapse of the healthcare system, and at the way the government handled the problem.

Investigations by local authorities and the World Health Organization will reveal whether the lives of Fatumata and other children – almost all under the age of 5 – were not cut short by being given these drugs, which, according to the WHO, contain “unacceptably high” amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol, substances widely used as antifreezes. Swallowing may result in death.

Last week, WHO sounded the alarm and called for the withdrawal of these syrups from circulation. They are distributed only in the Gambia, but the WHO does not consider them unlikely to circulate elsewhere through ‘unofficial’ routes, mainly in Africa, where control measures are often inadequate.

Questions remain unanswered: how did these counterfeit goods escape control, and why is the Gambia, one of the world’s poorest countries, the only one to import them?

Many parents spoke about the drama they went through while holding pictures of their children. Fatumata “wasn’t eating anything else and was bleeding from her mouth and nose,” said her father, Uri Bailo Keita, a 33-year-old who makes a living washing cars. In the end, the child suffered so much that “I prayed to God to take her away,” she said.

“Justice!”

Uri Bailo Keita is furious with the government.

The Gambian authorities have been alerted since at least the end of July. Initially, in addition to syrups, they named E. coli bacteria, which spread due to floods, as a possible cause of death. Gradually, however, syrups became the main “suspect”.

Small children continued to die in September. Authorities ordered the recall of the syrups on September 23.

“It is time for the government to do its job and stop trading in these products, because if they do nothing and other syrups are imported, the consequences will be dire,” said Mariama Kuyateh, a 30-year-old mother who lost her son. Moussa, last month.

It wasn’t until Saturday that President Adama Barrow addressed the nation. He ordered action to stop the importation of counterfeit medicines and called for the establishment of a control laboratory. The next day, he suspended the syrup importer’s license. At the same time, the police said they were launching an investigation.

The president’s speech did nothing to calm the anger.