Taha is just three years old and he must spend most of his days in the paediatric ward at the Tripoli Medical Centre, a major public hospital in the Libyan capital. Taha came here with his Nigerian mother, directly from Jdeideh prison under guard. His mother, who was mentally ill, denied that she was the little boy’s mother which basically left him an orphan.

Shortly after his arrival at the hospital, Taha was diagnosed with the HIV virus. And because of this he has to stay at the hospital because Libyan orphanages are not allowed to take in children with infectious diseases.

Taha is just three years old and he must spend most of his days in the paediatric ward at the Tripoli Medical Centre, a major public hospital in the Libyan capital. Taha came here with his Nigerian mother, directly from Jdeideh prison under guard. His mother, who was mentally ill, denied that she was the little boy’s mother which basically left him an orphan.

Shortly after his arrival at the hospital, Taha was diagnosed with the HIV virus. And because of this he has to stay at the hospital because Libyan orphanages are not allowed to take in children with infectious diseases.

Social worker, Mnani Mohammed, who is in charge of this ward, says Taha is not the only one. She knows of other similar cases. Mohammed says that the sick orphans’ cases are complicated further because of their lack of identity papers or nationality; because orphanages can’t take them in and register them officially, they are left in a stateless limbo at the public hospital.

And it’s not just at the Tripoli Medical Centre that this is happening – there are six similar cases at the Al Jalaa Maternity Hospital, in the same city.

Every now and then orphans come to the hospital for tests before they are sent on to the orphanage. “But the results for tests for certain diseases can take up to six months to arrive,” Salah Wafi, a paediatric supervisor at the Tripoli Medical Centre says. “That includes the test for the HIV virus in newborns.”

And the children must remain unregistered and at the hospital during that waiting period. Wafi says the hospital usually gets two or three such cases a week.

Meanwhile Nabil Soukni of the Libyan Foundation for Human rights says there is no reason why the sick children shouldn’t be sent straight to an orphanage. “In some orphanages, children with HIV live in a separate building,” Soukni says.

The Foundation has also asked that orphanage staff get instruction on how to manage diseases like this and that they should be made aware that it’s fine for the healthy and sick children to mingle.

Meanwhile Leila Nwiji, director of an orphanage in the Arada neighbourhood of Tripoli, says she is torn when presented with cases like this. It’s against Libyan law for her to accept the homeless children and she says that she’s been threatened with legal action for admitting an ill newborn in the past.  But on the other hand the orphans often come to the centre with orders from the state, and usually without health certificates.

A decision is supposed to be being made by the Ministry of Social affairs in Libya that will end the orphaned children’s time in limbo. It would give them the right to enter orphanages and subsequently to be registered and therefore, eligible for admission to school, amongst other things.

Sometimes the children’s’ cases are also resolved through in other ways. For example, one of the hospital staff took Hiba, a 10-year-old girl, home. However Hiba still doesn’t have any official papers and she spent years in hospital dreaming of being able to go to school, like the other children.

Meanwhile, little Taha’s case is about to be resolved. The Libyan authorities have proven that he has a Nigerian father too so the little boy will be flown to Nigeria where it is hoped that a Muslim family will adopt him.