Rebel attack stalls effort to battle Ebola

JOHANNESBURG — Rebels killed 15 civilians and abducted a dozen children in an attack at the epicenter of the latest deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a military source said on Sunday, as the violence again forced crucial virus-containment efforts to be suspended.

“It will be very hard to stop the outbreak if this violence continues,” said the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, Peter Salama.

A regional WHO official said that it was difficult to say how long work would be affected.

Confirmed Ebola cases have reached 202 in this outbreak, including 118 deaths.

Allied Democratic Forces (or ADF) rebels attacked the country’s army positions and several neighborhoods of Beni on Saturday and into Sunday, Captain Mak Hazukay Mongha said. The United Nations peacekeeping mission said its troops exchanged fire with rebels in Beni’s Mayangose area.

The ADF rebels have killed hundreds of civilians in recent years and are just one of several militias active in DR Congo’s far northeast.

Another deadly attack last month in Beni forced the suspension of Ebola-containment efforts for days, complicating work to track suspected contacts of infected people. Since then, many of the new confirmed Ebola cases have been reported in Beni, and the rate of new cases overall has more than doubled, alarming aid groups.

Health efforts in recent weeks had started to show results, and this new attack “will bring us back”, said Michel Yao, WHO’s incident manager for Ebola in North Kivu province.

The attack came after two medical agents with the DR Congo army were shot dead by another rebel group the first time health workers have been killed in this outbreak.

DR Congo’s health minister called it a “dark day” for everyone fighting Ebola.

Mai Mai rebels surged from the forest and opened fire on the unarmed agents with the army’s rapid intervention medical unit outside Butembo city, the health ministry said.

Health workers in this outbreak, declared on Aug 1, have described hearing gunshots daily, operating under the armed escort of UN peacekeepers or local security forces and ending work by sundown to lower the risk of attack.

AL-HADJI KUDRA MALIRO / ASSOCIATED PRESS Family members and onlookers mourn over the bodies of civilians killed by Allied Democratic Forces rebels in Beni, Eastern DR Congo, in this photo taken on Friday, Oct 5.