Latest reports inform that at least nine health workers have been killed by villagers in Guinea while they were trying to raise awareness about
the deadly Ebola virus.
According to BBC report, some of the bodies of the health workers were found in a septic tank in a village school near the city of Nzerekore.
It was gathered that the victims were murdered with machetes and clubs following suspicious from many villagers that the health workers are attempting to combat the disease.
Investigation revealed that the deceased were pelted with stones by residents when they arrived in the village of Women in southern Guinea, where the Ebola outbreak was first recorded.
According to a journalist who managed to escape the incident, she said she could hear villagers looking for the victims while she was hiding.
Meanwhile, it was gathered that a government delegation, led by the health minister, had been dispatched to the region but they were unable to reach the village by road because a main bridge
had been blocked.
On Thursday night, government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said the victims had been “killed in cold blood by the villagers”, claiming their bodies showed signs of being attacked with machetes and clubs.
Seven bodies were said to be found in the septic tank and two more in the bush.
However, six suspects have been arrested while the village has been reportedly deserted.
BBC’s Makeme Bamba in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, says many villagers accuse the health workers of spreading the disease.
It was gathered that riots erupted in Nzerekore, 50 km (30 miles) from Wome, last month after speculation grew that medics who were disinfecting a market were contaminating people.
The World Health Organization, WHO, warned on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak was accelerating, adding that more than 700 new cases of Ebola have emerged in West Africa in the last one week.
The statement informed that there had been more than 5,300 cases in total and that half of those were recorded in the past three weeks.
The Ebola epidemic has struck Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.
No fewer than seven people have died from the Ebola virus in Nigeria since the late Patrick Sawyer brought the deadly disease into Lagos on 20 July, 2014.
by ROTMANLUV 2023-07-08, 17:34
