Congolese aid worker says he narrowly escaped angry mob outside Ebola hospital

When aid worker Kalongo Rwabikanga and his team arrived at a hospital at the epicentre of the Ebola crisis last week, an angry mob surrounded their car.

Rwabikanga works for the humanitarian organization Action Entraide, and his team was visiting the Rwampara General Hospital on Thursday outside the city of Bunia, Ituri province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The crowd came to us, surrounded our vehicle and then told us, ‘You are the NGO. You are the one who brought Ebola here to kill our people, so we are going to kill you all, and then we’re going to burn your vehicle,'” Rwabikanga told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “We were really scared.”

The crowd started pelting the vehicle with rocks, he said, and forcing people out and threatening to beat them. Police nearby fired shots into the air, and the crowd dispersed long enough for the aid workers to escape. But shortly after, people set fire to a section of the hospital, including its Ebola isolation tents, forcing medical staff to evacuate the facility. 

The arson was one of three attacks in recent weeks against health-care facilities in the DRC, where misinformation is rapidly spreading alongside a rare type of Ebola that, as of yet, has no vaccine. 

Some residents believe non-governmental organizations are responsible for bringing the disease to the country, aid workers say, while others believe there is no disease at all.

“These people should stop bothering us. They just want to get rich,” said Pierre Basola, a 56-year-old resident of Bunia. “Let’s not forget that Ebola is a white man’s invention.”

Vanny Birungi, a volunteer with the Red Cross in eastern Congo, says that every time she goes into the community, she faces a double threat — the Ebola virus and vitriol from the community.

“We continue to tell them that the disease is out there,”  Birungi said. “Some accept and others don’t.”

Rwabikanga blames the uptick of violence on “ignorance” and “propaganda,” both of which he says have taken hold, in part, because of how long the disease was able to spread before officials identified it, and how quickly it’s killing people now.  

The World Health Organization said Monday there are roughly 900 suspected Ebola cases and more than 220 deaths in connection with the outbreak, which has recently spread into neighbouring Uganda.

At the centre of the outbreak is a rare type of Ebola virus, called Bundibugyo. The WHO suspects it had been spreading and killing for weeks, or even months, before officials detected it, as they had been testing for a different, more common kind.

As a result, by the time people present to hospitals and treatment centres with symptoms, the disease has already taken hold and patients often die in care, says Ahmed Mahat, manager with International Medical Corps. This, in turn, fuels more rumours. 

“They think that people come in, and then die once they arrive,” Mahat said. 

People are also angry about virus prevention practices that prevent people from retrieving their loved ones’ bodies to carry out last rites. Contact with diseased patients’ bodies is one of the ways Ebola virus spreads.

Several of the attacks, including the one in Rwampara, have been carried out by residents demanding to take bodies home. 

Mahat says it also doesn’t help that the country is ill-equipped to handle the crisis. 

The U.S.-based foreign aid that propped up the country’s health-care system has been dramatically slashed in recent years. Armed groups control parts of the country, and keep large segments of the population on the move.

“In some of the affected health zones, they don’t have, you know, the protective equipment. They don’t have medical supplies. Resources are not adequate. Laboratory capacity is rudimentary,” Mahat said. “There is a lot to be done.”

His organization, he says, is working on two fronts. They’re scrambling to build two isolation wards for Ebola patients, and they’re reaching out to community leaders, religious leaders and other influential community members to build trust and share information.

“We’ll be having daily, weekly discussions with them. They will be engaged in all our activities,” he said. “They can feel how things are being done, and this will really allay some of the fears within the community.”

Rwabikanga says Action Entraide is also working with local leaders to counter misinformation and educate people about Ebola.

He vowed to keep working despite the recent attacks and threats of violence.

“This cannot stop us doing good things,” he said. “We just decided to continue serving the community.”