A Congolese worker says he narrowly escaped an angry mob outside an Ebola hospital

When aid worker Kalongo Rwabikanga and his team arrived at the hospital where Ebola broke out last week, an angry mob surrounded their car.

Rwabikanga works for the charity Action Entraide, and his team visited Rwampara General Hospital on Thursday outside the town of Bunia, in Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The mob came to us, surrounded our car, and then told us, ‘You NGOs. You brought Ebola here to kill our people, so we will kill you all, and burn your car,'” said Rwabikanga. As It Happened hosted by Nil Köksal. “We were really scared.”

He said the crowd started throwing stones at the car, then forced people out and threatened to beat them. Nearby police fired into the air, and the crowd dispersed long enough for aid workers to escape. But soon after that, people they burned part of the hospital, including its Ebola isolation tentsforcing the medical staff to leave the facility.

The arson was one of three attacks in recent weeks on health facilities in the DRC, where false information is spreading rapidly and a rare strain of Ebola that, so far, has no vaccine.

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

“These people must stop bothering us. They want to get rich,” said Pierre Basola, 56, who lives in Bunia. “Let’s not forget that Ebola was invented by white people.”

Vanny Birungi, a Red Cross volunteer in eastern Congo, says that every time he goes to a community, he faces a double threat – the Ebola virus and vitriol in the community.

“We continue to tell them that this disease exists,” said Birungi. “Some don’t agree and some don’t.”

Rwabikanga blames the rise in violence on “ignorance” and “propaganda,” both of which he says have played a role, in part, because of how long the disease was able to spread before officials identified it, and how quickly it is killing people now.

The World Health Organization said on Monday that there are approximately 900 suspected Ebola cases and more than 220 deaths from the disease, which has recently spread to neighboring Uganda.

At the center of the outbreak is a rare strain of Ebola virus, called Bundibugyo. The WHO suspects it was spreading and killing for weeks, or months, before officials discovered it, as they tested for a different, more common strain.

Because of this, by the time people are in hospitals and treatment centers with symptoms, the disease has already taken hold and patients often die in care, said Ahmed Mahat, head of the International Medical Corps. This is fueling the rumours.

“They think that people come in, then die when they get there,” said Mahat.

People are also angry about quarantine procedures that prevent people from repatriating the bodies of their loved ones for last rites. Body-to-body contact with sick patients is one of the ways the Ebola virus spreads.

Many incidents of attacks, including the one in Rwampara, have been carried out by villagers who want to take the dead bodies home.

Mahat says that it does not help that the country is like that not equipped to handle this problem.

US-based foreign aid that has supported the country’s health care system has been successful has been reduced significantly in recent years. Armed groups control parts of the country, and keep large parts of the people who travel.

“In some of the affected health areas, they don’t have, you know, protective equipment. They don’t have medical equipment. The resources are not enough. The laboratory capacity is extraordinary,” Mahat said. “There is much to be done.”

He says his organization works on two things. They are trying to build two isolation wards for Ebola patients, and they are trying to reach out to community leaders, religious leaders and other influential community members to build trust and share information.

“We will have daily weekly discussions with them. They will be involved in everything we do,” he said. “They can feel how things are done, and this will eliminate fear in the community.”

Rwabikanga says Action Entraide is also working with local leaders to combat false information and educate people about Ebola.

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

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