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UN official blasts violence against Ebola teams in DR Congo
BUTEMBO, DR Congo, May 11, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The UN special
representative to DR Congo has blasted rumours that the world body was trying
to cash in on an Ebola epidemic that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.
Leila Zerrougui, head of the UN mission to the sprawling central African
nation, on Friday visited the eastern city of Butembo where she slammed as
“sheer madness” local speculation that “there is no illness, that they want
to poison us because they are trying to cash in on us.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said additional resources were
required to deal with the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Some UN teams helping to fight the second deadliest Ebola outbreak on
record after the epidemic that killed 11,300 people in West Africa in 2014-
2016 have come under attack and even been killed.
The epidemic has killed so far 1,105 people of 1,649 declared cases
since last August in North Kivu province, where Butembo is located, according
to latest official data.
“We are here to work with the authorities but we are also here to say to
the people that it is really incredible that those who have come to care for
you can be attacked,” Zerrougui said in comments reported by UN broadcaster
Okapi radio.
Last week, medics said they faced suspicion and hostility in some areas,
especially after one of their vehicles was involved in a fatal crash in
Butembo, in which a motorbike-taxi rider died.
– Resistance to preventive measures –
A violent response from the victims’ colleagues led to all shops and
commercial activity in the city grinding to a halt.
The Ebola fightback had already been hampered by an uptick in insecurity
and attacks on medical teams tackling the haemorrhagic fever amid resistance
within some communities to preventative measures, care facilities and safe
burials.
DR Congo’s health minister, Oly Ilunga, has warned that each time the
teams are prevented doing their job there is a spike in the number of new
Ebola cases and deaths. Last month also saw the killing of a Cameroonian
doctor fighting Ebola in an attack on Butembo hospital.
The World Health Organization had initially hoped a new vaccine might
help to contain the outbreak.
But in recent weeks senior WHO officials have conceded that insecurity,
scarce financial resources and local politicians turning people against
health workers had seriously undermined the containment effort.
On Wednesday, attacks by armed assailants left a dozen people dead in
Butembo, further undermining the fight against Ebola’s spread.
DR Congo anti-Ebola coordinator Justus Nsio insisted the attacks were
the “isolated” work of insurgents and that he did not think “the whole
community” was trying to undermine anti-Ebola operations.
Several armed groups are active around Butembo and nearby Beni.
On Thursday, the WHO said the outbreak response “continues to be
hampered by insecurity,” citing a May 3 attack on a burial team in Katwa and
then and then the Butembo incidents over the following days.
BSS/AFP/RY/1916 hrs