Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenDevastating images of the poor abandoned toddler shook the world last year, but now it seems he’s made a miraculous recovery.
Harrowing photos of the emaciated and starving toddler circulated last January, after it became apparent he’d been left by his parents who thought he was a witch.
A year on after a Danish woman rescued him from his tortured and neglected life, the Daily Mail reports the little boy has made a superb recovery, looking happy and healthy for his first day of school.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenThe then two-year-old was pictured in heart-wrenching photographs, starved to his tiny skeletal frame and worm-ridden.
Only a year ago, Hope as he has been named, was spotted helplessly roaming the streets in Nigeria, desperately searching for scraps to eat.
As if fate had planned it, Anja Ringgren Loven stumbled upon the poor, lost child and immediately took him in.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenThe horrendous photo of her giving Hope a bottle of water went viral but now, exactly a year on, she’s posted a similar snap of the little chap and he looks almost unrecognisable.
She wrote on Facebook:
On the 30th of January 2016 I went on a rescue mission with David Emmanuel Umem, Nsidibe Orok and our Nigerian team.
A rescue mission that went viral, and today it’s exactly one year ago the world came to know a young little boy called Hope
This week Hope will start school.
Last year, the little tot had spent eight months out in harsh conditions, fending for himself before he was found by the kind-hearted Dane.
Horrified by what she’d discovered, she gave the little love-less child some food and water and wrapped him up in a blanket.
Fragile Hope was then taken to hospital for worm-treatment and given daily blood transfusions to help save his life.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenAnja managed to raise $1 million in kind donations from around the world to pay for the little guy’s medical bills.
Amazingly, eight weeks later, the little fellow had gained some much-needed weight and was pictured smiling and playing with other children.
Compassionate Anja is the founder of a refuge named African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation, which she created to aid neglected children.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenShe wrote on Facebook last year:
Thousands of children are being accused of being witches and we’ve both seen torture of children, dead children and frightened children.
With all the money, we can, besides giving Hope the very best treatment, now also build a doctor clinic on the new land and save many more children out of torture.
Anja and her husband, David David Emmanuel Umem run the care centre and have started to build their own orphanage to provide refuge for more cruelly abandoned children.
Facebook/Anja Ringgren LovenWhat an amazing transformation the little guy made.
And its fantastic people like Anja exist in the world, with the kindness to take in abandoned children like Hope and provide them love and a new home.
This stiry is too much. I defy you not to well up…
