Residents in eastern Congo have attacked and burned part of a health center treating Ebola patients.

Residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo attacked and burned part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, and 18 people suspected of infection left the facility, a local hospital director said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week.

Unidentified people arrived at the clinic in Mongbwalu on Friday night and set fire to a tent set up for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases by the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group, Dr. Richard Lokudi, director of the Mongbwalu General Reference Hospital, told The Associated Press.

  • Watermark710@piefed.socialEnglish
    63·
    6 hours ago

    They’re mad that the facilities are not releasing the (highly contagious) bodies to the dead person’s family for “proper” burial. The facilities are instead following proper protocol, and burying the bodies safely. Some of them honestly believe that Ebola isn’t real, and is instead a scam by white westerners to steal Black bodies for nefarious purposes.

    It’s literally just ignorance and paranoia. They’re attacking the very people who are helping them, because of a conspiracy theory and a lack of education.

    I was in Sierra Leone during their outbreak in 2015 (I’m not a healthcare worker, but I was there to feed the healthcare workers), and we faced similar challenges. We had to cancel our mission because we were attacked so many times, and it wasn’t safe to be there.

    • Drusas@fedia.io
      16·
      5 hours ago

      Also, the same problem existed during the last major ebola epidemic. Rural areas need more education between outbreaks.

    • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.orgEnglish
      82·
      4 hours ago

      They’re attacking the very people who are helping them, because of a conspiracy theory and a lack of education.

      So not much different to the US.

    • HereIAm@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      5 hours ago

      I had hoped the pandemic denial would be a western phenomena. Too mass media brain rotted with strong political backing to think clearly. I know even things like the Spanish flu had their deniers back in the day, but I thought ebola would be visually and immediate enough that it would be taken seriously.

      • Watermark710@piefed.socialEnglish
        17·
        5 hours ago

        I went to a “hot zone” in Africa in the middle of an epidemic because I truly wanted to help in any way that I could. I was making food for doctors, nurses, and patients. I had shots fired at me. The locals tried to kill me. They thought I was harvesting Black bodies to steal their melanin. I legitimately feared for my life, but I didn’t leave until the organization I was working for pulled us out. I would have stayed, but without funding there was nothing I could do.

        None of it makes sense. If you read into the conspiracy theory, they think we’re using their melanin to make our dicks bigger. No, I’m not kidding. I never stole any melanin from a corpse (or at all). I was just there to make food for other humans. That’s my passion, I like to feed people.

        • Juan_de_Silentio@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          4 hours ago

          Thank you for being honest about this. I had friends that did missionary work in Africa. They talked about this, and so many people accused them of being, “racist Christians,” and making it up. The world can only become better educated when the truth is told.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        11·
        5 hours ago

        Even the name “Spanish” flu is because of denials from other nations:

        The outbreak did not originate in Spain,[49] but reporting did, due to wartime censorship in belligerent nations. Spain was a neutral country unconcerned with appearances of combat readiness, and without a wartime propaganda machine to prop up morale,[50][51] so its newspapers freely reported epidemic effects, making Spain the apparent locus of the epidemic.[52] The censorship was so effective that Spain’s health officials were unaware its neighboring countries were similarly affected.[53] In an October 1918 “Madrid Letter” to the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Spanish official protested, “we were surprised to learn that the disease was making ravages in other countries, and that people there were calling it the ‘Spanish grip’. And wherefore Spanish? …this epidemic was not born in Spain, and this should be recorded as a historic vindication.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

        I don’t think we can convince people to remember it as the more accurate “1918 flu”, so maybe the “not-spanish flu”?