Pandemic pushes more child vendors onto Central African Republic’s streets
INES KPAKOLE ABDIAS is not afraid of contracting coronavirus when he leaves home each day with a basket of hard-boiled eggs to sell on the busy streets of Bangui, the Central African Republic's capital. But the 11-year-old street vendor does fear the punishment he will endure if he fails to earn enough money for his family. "My mother beats me and blames it on me," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation one afternoon while selling his wares under the scorching sun with little to eat or drink. Abdias left school last year as his mother could not afford the fees,…