LIBERIA – The family of the late railroad technician of Arcelor Mittal is accusing the company of intentionally murdering its relation. The late Mr. Macdonald P.S. Dolo was one of two staff who died on Tuesday, January 11, 2022, after the rail equipment carrying maintenance crew came in contact with loaded wagons stationed on the rail line around Kilometer 196 in Nimba County.
Four other employees are seriously injured and said to be on the critical list, according to eyewitnesses.
According to a statement issued in Yekepa, the Dolo Family says Arcelor Mittal’s complete negligence, neglect, and recklessness in the aftermath of the deadly train accident is nothing short of deliberate murder.
The Dolo Family says it, therefore, demands answers from the company over the loss of its loved one who didn’t have to die on duty in such a reckless manner he did.
“We believe that Mr. Dolo, your ‘committed’ rail technician, and his dead colleague, Mr. Justin Mars, an M-contractor would not have died if AML had prioritized saving their lives”, the Dolo Family said in a Press Statement, the Family cried, further threatening legal action against the company.
The Dolo Family, among others, lamented Arcelor Mittal’s poor safety measures for its rail maintenance crew, the company’s slow and inhumane response as well as the company’s deliberate abandoning of the critically injured staff by dumping them at the JFK Hospital in Monrovia after being evacuated from Nimba County.
The Family also takes the company to task for what it termed as a mockery when it referred to the two deceased staff as ‘committed’ on grounds that Arcelor Mittal’s terrible and inhumane response did not prove that the late Mr. Dolo and Mr. Mars were ‘committed staff’.
The Dolo Family said it remains puzzled over the manner in which a few members of the family had to assume responsibility for the hospital bill after the company chose to allow its staff to die by not even calling medical personnel’s attention to the critically injured staff at the JFK Hospital: “This was so grave that it took a few of our family members who had gone to check on Mr. Dolo taking the responsibility of calling the nurses’ attention to him and paying bills.
It was after we began crying in that hospital that the nurses asked us to get four pounds of blood. Then it was then that available family members including the wife who travelled all the way from Yekepa upon hearing the news of her husband began to donate blood. By this time, over 10 hours had passed since they were abandoned, neglected and completely ignored by the AML personnel who took them at the JFK and left even though Mr. Dolo kept carrying out for help on the hospital bed”.
“AML’s ambulances only dropped off, or rather dumped the seriously injured ‘committed staff’ at the JFK Hospital and left them unattended without the slightest human feelings or ordinary common sense of ensuring that its own wounded and bleeding staff were immediately attended to. As a result of AML’s abandonment at the JFK Hospital, our relation and his colleague had to die like animals”, the Family added, which is also contained in a formal letter of complaint to the company.
Relating to Arcelor’s untimely intervention and unnecessary delay, the family challenges Arcelor Mittal’s assertion that its emergency response and technical teams responded in time and that the injured were evacuated from the scene for medical care.
The Dolo Family says it is concerned over AML’s decision to have taken the critically injured staff all the way to Monrovia, ignoring even better facilities in Nimba, Bong, and Margibi Counties, all three counties which had to all be driven or flown over before getting to Monrovia: “Why didn’t you consider, for instance, the Ganta United Methodist Hospital among others in Nimba County? What about the Phebe Hospital in Bong County? Why not even the Duside Hospital in Margibi County which is managed by another concession like you, Firestone?”
The Dolo Family added, “Even though you ignored those hospitals in those three different counties and still insisted on bringing those critically wounded staff to Monrovia, the Family is keenly interested in your choice of an already, heavily challenged JFK Hospital amidst all several other better medical facilities in Monrovia.”
The Dolo Family also challenges Arcelor Mittal’s assertion that it “medically evacuated” the injured by helicopter to the hospital: “We have gathered that they were only evacuated ordinarily but not medically as there was not a single first aid or any form of medical temporary intervention while being evacuated. Is that how AML treats its ‘committed staff’?
The Family sees big deception of Arcelor Mittal’s pronouncement of temporarily suspending rail operations as being in solidarity with the deaths of its staff.
“Mittal Steel only suspended its rail operations for the first day of the accident not out of concern for what has happened but because the remnants of the accident were still on the railroad which prevented any resumption of operations at the time. At the moment, the trains have begun transporting ores again. So let it not be stated that it halted operations as being in solidarity with our relationship and his colleague’s deaths”, the Family stated.
