Letter from Saclepea: Remembering the young and the old ones Who Sleep HungryBy Musa Hassan Bility

There are nights in this country that should make every leader ashamed.Nights when a little girl, no older than ten, lies awake in fear because the world that was supposed to protect her has instead wounded her. Nights when a child, violated by the cruelty of men, stares into darkness with questions no child should ever have to ask. Nights when tears fall silently onto mats, onto torn mattresses, onto bare floors, and there is no justice, no counselor, no comfort, no healing, only pain wrapped in silence.There are nights when children sleep hungry.Not because this country is poor. Not because God forgot us. Not because the land has failed. But because those who sit at the table of power have chosen greed over duty, luxury over service, and selfishness over humanity.In village after village, in town after town, in the forgotten corners of this republic, children go to bed with empty stomachs and empty hopes. They wake up not to classrooms, but to hardship. Not to books, but to burdens. Not to teachers, but to the streets. Their school uniforms are dreams they have outgrown, never worn. Their pencils have been replaced by suffering. Their future is being stolen before it is even born.And what of the old?The older men and women who carried this country on their backs, who farmed its soil, who raised its children, who survived war, hunger, and loss, now sit abandoned in their final years. They sit on broken porches, weak and forgotten, their bodies aching, their eyes dimming, their medicines out of reach. Some have not eaten a proper meal in days. Some have learned to swallow pain because treatment is too expensive. Some wait, not for help, but for death, because the nation they served no longer sees them.This is the tragedy of our time.A land so rich, yet a people so poor.A country blessed with resources enough to feed every child, educate every young mind, and care for every old soul, yet trapped in the hands of a very few who divide the national cake among themselves as though Liberia belongs only to them. They feast while the people fast. They build comfort for themselves while the people build endurance. They speak of progress in air-conditioned rooms while entire communities live with hunger, rape, sickness, and neglect.It is a wicked contradiction.How can a nation with so much produce children with so little?How can public officials ride in comfort while mothers cannot find food for their babies?How can we celebrate wealth in a country where young girls are unsafe, where young boys are hopeless, where the elderly are discarded like forgotten tools?This is not just failure. It is a moral collapse.Because the true measure of a nation is not in the riches under its soil, but in the dignity of the people above it. A nation is not judged by the size of its budget, but by whether its children are safe, whether its young are educated, and whether its old are cared for.Today, too many of our children are growing up in pain. Too many of our young people are growing up angry, wounded, and abandoned. Too many of our elderly are fading away in quiet misery. And all the while, a small circle continues to eat, to share, to loot, to enjoy, and to pretend that this suffering is normal.It is not normal. It is not acceptable. And it must not continue.Tomorrow, when speeches are made and promises are repeated, let us remember the child who slept hungry tonight. Let us remember the little girl whose innocence was stolen. Let us remember the older woman whose empty medicine bottle sits beside her bed. Let us remember the older man who has worked all his adult life only to end his days in neglect.Let us remember that the real Liberia is not the one seen in official convoys, polished statements, or decorated offices. The real Liberia is the child crying in the dark. The mother who has nothing to cook. The grandfather with no medicine. The grandmother with no one to call.That is the Liberia that should trouble our conscience.That is the Liberia that should provoke our anger.That is the Liberia that should force us to ask: who is eating for this country, and who is suffering for it?Until the wealth of this nation begins to touch the lives of the people, until leadership becomes service and not possession, until justice protects the weak and not the powerful, we will remain a rich country with poor people, a blessed land with broken lives, a republic whose greatest resource is still being wasted: its people.And so, from Saclepea, I write not with celebration, but with sorrow.For the children who sleep hungry. For the girls who live in fear. For the young people deprived of education.For older adults, abandoned by their people, without food, without medicine, without care.For a people denied their share of a nation that belongs to them.And I write with one firm conviction: no country can call itself free when its children cry from hunger, and its elderly die from neglect while a few men divide the cake.