Malian Journalist Recounts Life-Changing Encounter with King Mohammed VI’s Generosity

Sékou Tamboura, who was going on Thursday, August 12, 2010, the first day of Ramadan, to the home of his editor-in-chief, Idrissa Abocar Maïga, to hand over the work equipment (dictaphone and camera) because of his regular visits to his mother plunged into a coma on August 8, was a thousand miles from imagining that his life would take a worrying, even desperate turn.

That day, he met his hierarchical boss as planned. But before they parted, a serious accident occurred. The car of the daughter of a government minister had just hit the two men. It was only at the Gabriel Touré hospital that they woke up. The diagnosis is made: Sékou Tamboura has his left femur crushed, his boss, the head trauma.

Nearly a month after his transfer to the Kati hospital, his foot remained suspended in the air, under the weight of the splint installed. The reason, no emergency room, nor adequate and necessary equipment for the operation. Two solutions are considered: amputation or evacuation.

The journalist informs his boss, Cheickna Hamalah Sylla, editor-in-chief of the newspaper L’Aube de la situation. The latter requests the help of King Mohammed VI through Moulay Driss Fadhil, Moroccan ambassador to Mali. The request was accepted, and the file entrusted to the Moroccan Agency for International Cooperation (AMCI). Things are accelerating.

Thursday, September 9, 2010, at 6:00 a.m., he travels "in temporary immobilization and in a lying position on a stretcher", on board flight AT 524 of Royal Air Maroc. On arrival at Casablanca Airport, he will be admitted to the prestigious Mohamed V Military Hospital in Rabat. The rapid diagnosis reveals that the emergency room is not necessary. On Monday, September 20, Prof. Zakariaa Raissouni, trauma-orthopedist and his team proceed to operate on his foot, which already had polio sequelae. The operation was a complete success. Sékou Tamboura returned to Bamako with his own, including his mother out of a coma, on Saturday, October 2.