Deadly attack amid Ebola outbreak stalls containment

JO H A NNESBUR G» Congolese rebels killed 15 civilians and abducted a dozen children in an attack at the epicenter of the latest deadly Ebola outbreak, Congo’s military said Sunday, as the violence again forced crucial viruscontainment 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 told The Associated Press 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 rebels attacked Congolese army positions and several neighborhoods of Beni on Saturday and into Sunday, Capt. Mak Hazukay Mongha told the AP. The U.N. peacekeeping mission said its troops exchanged fire with rebels in Beni’s Mayangose area.

Angry over the killings, residents carried four of the bodies to the town hall, where police dispersed them with tear gas. While some health workers took refuge in a local hospital, the protesters destroyed a number of government buildings and blocked all traffic, Congo’s health ministry said.

Vehicles of aid organizations and the U.N. mission were pelted with stones, the U.N.backed Radio Okapi reported.

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

Another deadly attack last month in Beni forced the suspension of Ebolacontainment 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.