Daniel Uyirwoth Welo, dressed in full-body protective gear, can be seen in a recent viral video running for his life when a crowd in a cemetery turned violent during the burial of an Ebola victim. He was one of four Red Cross volunteers who were injured in the June assault in the Democratic Republic of the Congo city of Bunia. The attack was triggered by rumors that the coffin was empty.
“They grabbed me from behind and started punching me, hitting me with spades and machetes,” he told the BBC for a July 9 article, recalling how people in the crowd said, “Ebola doesn’t exist,” while others claimed that the aid workers were there “to get money.”
The attack was one of several incidents linked to false information since the DRC declared the outbreak on May 8. Fear and suspicion of outside organizations swirled through communities in the eastern provinces. Rioters set fire to a treatment center in May, one of at least a dozen facilities that have been attacked.
Healthcare workers and aid groups say false information spread locally and online hampers their efforts to contain the virus. Meanwhile, the deadly disease is raging. With more than 1,500 deaths through the end of July, the outbreak has become the second-deadliest in the DRC’s history and the fastest growing on record.
In a June 5 statement, the Red Cross expressed shock at the Bunia attack, in which two of the four injured volunteers were so severely wounded that they had to be airlifted to the capital, Kinshasa, for...
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