Scots woman’s heartbreak of losing adopted son to Ebola

A Scots woman has spoken of her sorrow after her adopted son died from Ebola.

Jilly Tambanhabay had been due to meet 23-year-old George in Sierra Leone in just a few days time.

Ms Tambanhabay, 63, is now back home in Perthshire after returning from west Africa.

While there, she received a phonecall to say George had fallen unwell while on a study camp.

She said: “He was to be back in four or five days. I received a phone call saying he was not feeling well and then another that he had died of Ebola.

“It is like a nightmare. When am I going to wake up?”

Ms Tambanhabay adopted George as a youngster with her late husband with the couple trying for many years to bring him to Scotland.

She described the realities of the epidemic as “like a horror movie”.

She added: “They have lost control of it. They maintain they have got a grip of it but they have not got a grip at all.”

Ms  Tambanhabay has two other adopted children in Sierra Leone.

The World Health Organisation now estimates that more than 4,000 people have died from the infection, mainly in west Africa.

A further 7,000 people have been infected.