“An angry crowd set alight a section of a hospital at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after family and friends of a young man thought to have died from the virus were prevented from taking his body away for burial,” reports the BBC.
“They started throwing projectiles at the hospital. They even set fire to tents that were being used as isolation wards,” said Congolese politician Luc Malembe, who witnessed the scene at Rwampara General Hospital.
Cops fired warning shots to disperse the crowd.
The body of a dead Ebola victim is very infectious so officials sought to ensure safe burial to stop the virus from spreading.
Hospital workers were guarded by troops as cops moved in to restore order. The hospital is located in war-torn Ituri province, where most of the recent Ebola cases have been reported.
A hospital worker was injured by stone-throwing protesters before police intervened.
The man who died was a popular figure in the local community and those upset by his death did not “grasp the reality of the disease,” said local law enforcement official Jean Claude Mukendi.
Witnesses say the dean man was a soccer player who had been on several local sports teams. His mother erroneously believed her son had died of typhoid, rather than Ebola.
The Congolese politician said many of his constituents did not believe the virus, which recently killed more than 150 people in the eastern provinces of the Congo, was real.
“People are not properly informed or sensitised 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,” the politician said.
“They believe it is the NGOs and hospitals creating this to make money, and this is tragic.”
He witnessed two tents being burned down, consuming a body that was slated to be buried.
