Parents of ‘Terrified’ Africans Stranded in China Want Help

Margaret Ntale, whose three student daughters are stranded in Wuhan, and Cecilia Oyet, in foreground holding cellphone, whose daughter is a medical student at Wuhan University of Science and Technology, speak by video-call to their children and other Ugandan students who are stranded in Wuhan, from Ntale's house in Kampala, Uganda on Feb. 27, 2020. Parents' fears are growing for the thousands of African students who are thought to be stranded in Wuhan amid the virus outbreak, with concerns that students are running out of food and money weeks after other countries evacuated citizens. AP Photo

KAMPALA, Uganda—She wakes every day long before dawn to chat with her three stranded daughters on the other side of the world in China’s locked-down city of Wuhan, anxious to see they have started a new day virus-free.

“If I don’t get a reply it worries me, but if I get a reply from any of them I say, ‘Thank you, Jesus,’” Margaret Ntale said.