DR Congo Ebola Response Effort Suspended In Beni After Clashes
Mohammad Ali (@ChaudhryMAli88) Published November 18, 2018 | 04:09 AM
Beni, DR Congo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Nov, 2018 ) :Efforts to fight an Ebola outbreak in DR Congo's restive eastern Beni region were suspended Saturday after clashes just a "few metres" from a local emergency centre and hotels of several response teams, the health ministry said.
Late Friday, UN peacekeepers from the MONUSCO peacekeeping force repelled an offensive by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militia in Beni city's northern Boikene neighbourhood, a ministry statement said.
The ADF, a shadowy armed group that has killed hundreds of people since 2014 and at least seven peacekeepers in clashes just this week, wanted to "attack one of MONUSCO's bases", the statement said.
"We escaped death thanks to MONUSCO, which is very close to us in Boikene," a resident told the UN's Okapi radio.
"They repelled the attackers with the FARDC," the Congolese army, the resident said.
The health ministry said Saturday that "all field activities were suspended and the emergency operations centre remains closed," adding that Ebola health worker response teams had stayed in their hotels.
The statement said that Health Minister Dr Oly Ilunga Kalenga deplored these acts of violence and the outbreak "remains dangerous, particularly in Beni".
Since August 1, the Ebola outbreak in Beni, home to up to 300,000 people, has killed 213 people.
The UN has said unrest is hampering efforts to contain the disease in a region that has been troubled for decades by inter-ethnic bloodshed and militia violence.
The ADF is an Islamist-rooted group that rose in western Uganda in 1995, led by Jamil Mukulu, a converted Muslim.
Forced out of Uganda, it operates in the border area in the DRC's North Kivu province.
A ceremony was held Saturday in Beni for six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who were killed in an operation against the ADF this week.
Fifteen other peacekeepers were killed in an ADF attack on a MONUSCO base in Beni in December last year.
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