-Beg for food to take Medicine
It has been almost a year since the tanker exploded in Totota, killing dozens and severely burning many others. But survivors say they remain trapped in a cycle of neglect long after the flames died, as promises made by the government and aid agencies have fallen silent, despite public commitments of food, medical support, and more than US$450,000 in emergency assistance.
Some victims told this newspaper that JFK hospital staff are now asking them to 'find their own food' before taking lifesaving medication. With no food and no means to buy it, some are forced to beg from house to house just to survive, even though no food support has reached them for months.
Their accounts raise troubling questions about where the relief resources pledged by the government, NGOs, and community-based organizations went, and why those still living with life altering injuries now feel abandoned by the very systems that vowed to help them.
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One of the victims, Mathew Kokoya, told this paper that life at John F. Kennedy Medical Center (JFK) in Monrovia has become increasingly difficult. Despite promises of aid from the government and international donors, support stopped long ago, and he is now forced to move from house to house, begging for food not just for himself, but also for his sister, who was injured in the explosion. Our reporters met him asking for cash so that he and his sister could eat and take their medication.
"Even though JFK is doing its best to treat us, we are facing a serious challenge when it comes to food." he said
On December 26, 2023, a fuel tanker transporting gasoline crashed and tipped into a ditch along the main road in Totota, about 130 km from Liberia's capital, Monrovia. As locals gathered around to collect fuel leaking from the overturned tanker, it suddenly exploded. Witnesses described an immediate inferno; dozens were killed and many more badly burned.
Initial official reports put the death toll at "at least 40," but report shows it was difficult to distinguish the bodies making it difficult to account for the total death.
However, survival of the incident were rushed to several hospitals; among the worst off were transferred to JFK in Monrovia.
In immediate response, international and local agencies including World Health Organization (WHO) mobilized and donated emergency medical supplies, including burncare materials, IV fluids, dressings and antibiotics to treat the wounded. Other humanitarian groups including Samaritan's Purse dispatched medical teams to support hospitals overwhelmed by the influx of burn survival.
The government at the time, accepted help from the World Bank who committed US $450,000 to support Liberia's emergency plan to treat trauma patients, provide critical supplies, and even give nutritional support for severely burned victims.
Following the incident Local officials and senior lawmakers, who also visited the disaster site, made some donations including cash and food items for hospitalized victims and bereaved families.
Additionally, Medical supplies, foreign support, food donations, meals, and blanket financial assistance were promised, but for Kokoya and other survivors still at the JFK those promises appear to have fallen apart.
He told this paper that after the initial wave of support, aid dried up. "Most of the donations never reached us," he said. Among the victims still at JFK (he estimates around seven), there is no food, and many can't access the full course of required medication.
According to hospital administrative staff whose names this paper agreed to withhold for their safety JFK's policy requires patients to provide their own food before receiving medication, And that most of the condition at the hospital is discouraging for the survival as beds are always limited.
JFK's Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Cole, who declined to disclose the exact number of survivors still undergoing treatment, confirmed that it is standard policy for patients to secure their own meals while admitted.
He told this publication that as many of the survivors are now improving and responding to treatment, it is the responsibility of their family members to step in, provide support, and ensure their relatives receive food.
This policy, however, leaves many burn survivors especially those with no stable support or income in a tragic limbo that is too medically fragile to work, yet too destitute to afford the food they need to take their medication.
So Where Did the Money and Aid Go? A Breakdown of the Accountability Gap
Our investigation found that Relief was pledged; supplies were donated; institutions were mobilized, But according to a recent public report by the victims' advocacy body, Grievance Committee for Totota Victims, virtually no long-term support ever materialized.
In November 2025, the Committee publicly rejected the official financial report presented by the local disaster management group, calling it "tampered with," "incomplete," and lacking a detailed breakdown of how funds and relief items were distributed.
Under that same report, authorities claimed millions in Liberian dollars and bags of rice had been distributed, but Survivors and their families say otherwise, many of them say they never saw a cent, never received promised meals, and were never contacted again.
The consequences go beyond hunger and missing medication. For survivors like Kokoya and his sister, life has changed forever. Their injuries, many of them severe burns, require continuous wound dressing, pain medication, and sometimes reconstructive procedures. Without consistent treatment and nutrition, their health, and their hopes for a normal life are fading.
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"The doctors say we need to eat before we take the medicine. If we don't eat, we can't take it," Kokoya said. "That's why we're still here begging. We have nowhere else to go."
He said some former patients have already been released but remain crippled by pain and unable to work. Others fear returning home, both because they can't afford care elsewhere, and most of them don't have family, and because of this they feel abandoned by the government that once promised to protect them.
Advocacy groups such as United Bong County Association in the Americas (UBCAA) once called for transparency, justice, and urgent support demanding a full audit of all funds and donations pledged or collected for neglected survival, but to no avail.
Without these, critics warn, the Totota tragedy risks being remembered only for its death toll, not for the lives still burning behind the headlines.
Meanwhile, The 2023 tanker explosion in Totota shocked the nation. In its immediate aftermath, it brought out the best of emergency responses, global aid agencies, humanitarian NGOs, and official pledges. But for many survivors, those responses have long since ended.
Today, some remain alive, but they say they are slowly being left to die all over again: from starvation, from untreated wounds, from broken promises.
As Liberia moves on, the question remains: who will remember them, and who will help them recover?
