Mob Denying Existence of Ebola Sets Congo Treatment Center on Fire

The Ebola treatment center at Rwampara Hospital in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was set on fire Thursday during a brawl between local police and a mob of angry youths attempting to claim the body of an Ebola victim.

Rwampara Hospital is located near the city of Bunia in the DRC’s Ituri province, the epicenter of the alarming Ebola outbreak that has produced nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths.

The victim whose death sparked the unfortunate conflict on Thursday was a popular local soccer player who took ill and died at the hospital. The victim’s mother made it known that she believed he had contracted typhoid fever, not Ebola. Amazingly, eyewitnesses said the mob of young men who attacked the Ebola treatment center in a bid to claim his body did not believe Ebola was a real disease at all.

“People are not properly informed or sensitized about what is happening. For a certain segment of the population, especially in remote areas, Ebola is an invention by outsiders — it does not exist,” local politician Jean Calude Mukendi told the BBC on Friday.

“They believe it is the NGOs and hospitals creating this to make money, and this is tragic,” said Mukendi, who is coordinating the local security response to the epidemic.

“His family, friends, and other young people wanted to take his body home for a funeral even though the instructions from the authorities during this Ebola virus outbreak are clear: all bodies must be buried according to the regulations,” he said of the victim at Rwampara Hospital.

Ebola spreads through bodily fluids and the victims often include healthcare workers who tended to infected people, so the bodies of the deceased must be handled carefully. Congolese health officials have said improperly secured public funerals for early victims of the outbreak may have become “super-spreader” events that led to subsequent infections and deaths.

The uncommon strain involved in the current outbreak, Ebola Bundibugyo, has a fatality rate that could approach 50 percent, depending on how many of the currently “suspected” cases and deaths are confirmed. There is presently no vaccine for Ebola Bundibugyo.

Another local politician, Luc Malembe Malembe, told the BBC that the angry mob began hurling firebombs after police confronted them and ordered them to disperse.

“They started throwing projectiles at the hospital. They even set fire to tents that were being used as isolation wards,” he said. Two of the tents burned down, one of them with the body of a dead Ebola victim inside.

The mob also threw stones at hospital staffers, injuring at least one of them.

“The police intervened to try to calm the situation, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful. The young people ended up setting fire to the center. That’s the situation,” said a local resident quoted by Fox News.

According to the Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), six people were undergoing treatment at the Ebola center when it was attacked. All six have been accounted for and are still receiving medical care.

ALIMA condemned the violence at Rwampara Hospital, blaming the spread of “incorrect or unconfirmed information on social media and the Internet” and warning that such misinformation could lead to more violence, vandalism, and Ebola transmission.

Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba was much more forgiving in her comments to the BBC, describing the Ebola outbreak as a “very frightening situation” for communities in the outbreak area.

“I think it is normal and it would be normal in any setting that all sorts of reactions are triggered, including challenging or questioning narratives that they might not feel comfortable with,” she said.

The DRC’s national soccer team canceled its World Cup training program in Kinshasa on Thursday due to the outbreak, which might have contributed to the angry mood among young fans in Bunia.

The team said its training camp, which has been conducted for every World Cup since 1974, would be relocated to Belgium and pre-tournament games would proceed on schedule, including matches in Belgium on June 3 and Spain on June 9.

The DRC team is currently scheduled to play its first tournament match against Portugal on June 17 in Houston, Texas. The Trump administration is reportedly working with the FIFA organization to ensure the Congolese team will be able to enter the United States, with appropriate safety measures in place.

World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that the Congo outbreak is “spreading rapidly,” and now poses a “very high” risk across the DRC.

W.H.O. continues to assess the risk level as “high” for neighboring countries like Uganda, and “low” for the rest of the world.