Ebola outbreak: Health team 'found dead' in Guinea

[Bosonic]

Last edited Thu Sep 18, 2014, 04:57 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: BBC

Officials in Guinea searching for a team of health workers and journalists who went missing while trying to raise awareness of Ebola have found several bodies.

A spokesman for Guinea's government said the bodies included those of three journalists in the team.

They went missing after being attacked on Tuesday in a village near the southern city of Nzerekore.

More than 2,600 people have now died from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-29256443

[TwilightGardener]

1. Smart. Just like those geniuses who broke into a quarantine center and stole

soiled bedding and mattresses.

[valerief]

2. Maybe their religion told them to do it. nt

[AngryAmish]

11. Probably true.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in Africa.

[chrisa]

41. And not to forget human stupidity.

Fear makes people behave like wild animals and do stupid things that are both nonsensical and dangerous.

[jwirr]

6. I would guess this is panic and of course anger.

[seveneyes]

3. Lawlessness and ignorance kills

Anyone going there without military protection does not care about continuing to live their life.

[Bosonic]

4. bodies found

Government spokesman in #Guinea says eight bodies including three journalists have been found after an attack on an #ebola education team

https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/512701361574531072

[Brigid]

5. No good deed goes unpunished.

[Aerows]

7. Have mercy

This is a disaster in the making.

[Mnemosyne]

8. K&R nt

[seveneyes]

9. That will curb enthusiasm to go there and help

Choices narrow

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. This is fucking insane: stoned, slit throats, and thrown in the latrine

Witnesses said the team were set upon by angry residents in the remote village of Womey, where many remain in denial about the disease, or suspicious of foreign health workers. Several failed to return following the visit on Tuesday. Officials earlier said some – including three journalists and the director and two senior doctors of the main local hospital – were being held captive. Atempts to reach them stalled when angry residents destroyed bridges leading to the village.

"The meeting started off well; the traditional chiefs welcomed the delegation with 10 kola nuts as a traditional greeting," said a resident who was present at the meeting and gave only his first name, Yves. "It was afterwards that some youths came out and started stoning them. They dragged some of them away, and damaged their vehicles."

In an announcement made on state television late on Thursday, Mohamed Saïd Fofana said authorities had located the bodies a day after the group was abducted. Among the dead were three Guinean radio journalists who had been covering the education efforts.

A government spokesman, Damantang Albert Camara. told Reuters: "The bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit." Some others from the delegation are still believed to be missing.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/18/ebola-health-workers-missing-guinea

[snagglepuss]

14. Since Guinea is predominently Muslim, I'd be interested knowing if Muslims

did this and if so what is it with their slicing necks and beheading people. What other group of people are so predisposed to slicing necks? I have to wonder whether halal slaughter has deranged their minds.

[uppityperson]

32. Thousands were murdered like this in Rwanda, assisted by Catholic & Protestant churches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Rwanda

Timothy Longman has provided the most detailed discussion of the role of religion in the Rwandan genocide in Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, published in 2010.[7] Longman argues that both Catholic and Protestant churches helped to make the genocide possible by giving moral sanction to the killing. Churches had longed played ethnic politics themselves, favoring the Tutsi during the colonial period then switching allegiance to the Hutu after 1959, sending a message that ethnic discrimination was consistent with church teaching. The church leaders had also long had close ties with the political leaders, and after the genocide began, the church leaders called on the population to support the new interim government, the very government supporting the genocide.

[Blue_Tires]

35. Were the victims locals or westerners??

I haven't been able to find any info about them

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. All Guinean, I think

The BBC article now has "some of the bodies - of health workers, local officials and journalists". And some of the doctors and journalists in the group were Guinean too; The Guardian has "some – including three journalists and the director and two senior doctors of the main local hospital – were being held captive" and "among the dead were three Guinean radio journalists".

Since there's no mention of other nationalities, of of NGOs like MSF or the Red Cross, I suspect they were all Guinean. This report implies it was under the direction of the Guinean government:

Earlier Friday, the Guinean government said it was stopping Ebola education activities in the country’s southeast after eight missing health workers and journalists were murdered there this week. Their bodies were found in a septic tank in a primary school in a nearby village on Thursday, reportedly killed by villagers fearful of the disease and suspicious of official efforts to combat it. Two other workers remain missing.

http://www.voanews.com/content/sierra-leone-ebola-lockdown/2455178.html

But now I find this:

One notable characteristic of this week's gruesome murders in Guinea is that the victims were not foreigners.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/19/the-fear-and-hopelessness-behind-the-deadly-attack-on-ebola-workers-in-guinea/

[PeoViejo]

12. They say NO!

Sad.

[XemaSab]

13. You heard it here first:

The 3,000 troops we're sending aren't going there to provide health care, they're going there to keep order and protect healthcare workers.

[undeterred]

15. MURDERED...Eight dead in attack on Ebola team in Guinea. ‘Killed in cold blood.

The bodies of eight people, including several health workers and three journalists, have been found days after they were attacked while distributing information about Ebola in a Guinean village near the city of Nzerekore, according to Reuters.

"The eight bodies were found in the village latrine," Albert Damantang Camara, a spokesman for Guinea's government, told Reuters on Thursday. "Three of them had their throats slit."

When the delegation arrived on Tuesday to do disinfection work and educate people about preventing Ebola, angry and fearful residents began throwing rocks and beating people in the group with clubs according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited Guinean radio reports. The delegation, which included one local politician, fled into the bush to escape the attackers.

One journalist who managed to escape told reporters that she could hear the people looking for her while she hid, according to the BBC.

On Thursday, the bodies were found in the septic tank of a primary school in the village, according to Camara. They had been "killed in cold blood by the villagers," he added, according to the BBC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/09/18/missing-health-workers-in-guinea-were-educating-villagers-about-ebola-when-they-were-attacked/?tid=trending_strip_5

[Tumbulu]

16. As if this nightmare could not get worse,

oh these poor people!

[geek tragedy]

17. Well, the barbarians who murdered them certainly

will richly deserve their fate. Quarantine the entire village. Let God/Allah/whatever decide their fate.

People who murder aid workers don't merit protection from Ebola.

[closeupready]

22. Because torture is sometimes ok?

[geek tragedy]

23. Who said torture was ok? nt

[closeupready]

24. You did.

You implied it.

[geek tragedy]

25. Torture is one human being deliberately

inflicting pain and suffering onto another. I did not call for that.

[closeupready]

27. Maybe so, but you've got some really ugly, despicable views here.

Those who killed the team should be locked up, probably for life. And if they contract Ebola, they should be treated for it just as anyone else should be.

Done.

[geek tragedy]

28. Given that they're killing anyone who tries to help

no more lives should be put in danger on their behalf.

Murder aid providers= no more aid for you.

[closeupready]

29. That makes no sense from a public health standpoint.

[geek tragedy]

30. Sure it does, if you quarantine.

When they kill aid workers, providing aid is not an option.

[closeupready]

31. Why would you quarantine infants?

And refuse them aid?

[geek tragedy]

34. Because they're surrounded by people who will kill

anyone who tries to help those infants.

[NickB79]

36. I nominate closeupready to go bring those infants medicine

But unfortunately, their parents are blood-thirsty murderers.

[closeupready]

37. Done.

[LeftishBrit]

40. Agreed

Apart from all other considerations, Ebola is contagious, and attempts at controlling it by quarantine have obviously not been fully effective.. Even if someone considers that the murderers deserve to get it, the innocent people, who will be exposed to them, do not deserve to get it.

[Trajan]

26. Yeah ... ditto ...

[Quantess]

18. Horrible.

[GOLGO 13]

19. As if another reason to not go anywhere near Africa was needed

Well, I guess we're not needed we'll leave y'all to figure it out for yourselves. Give us a call when you faces start melting off.

[uppityperson]

33. Are you seriously saying nasty acts like this are a good reason to avoid an entire continent?

That sounds like people who won't come to USA because of mass murders.

[Sunlei]

20. a dangerous job to try to help some remote areas. The people are suspicious & ignorant.

[LeftishBrit]

39. Truly horrible