The health authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have resumed efforts to combat the major Ebola outbreak in the eastern region of Beni after a brief suspension after the clashes.
“Despite the deadly attacks. Ebola response activities are ongoing, ”the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.
Despite the deadly attacks on Friday in the city of Beni, #DRC, Ebola response activities are ongoing.
Operations continued, but were limited to Beni on Saturday.
By Sunday, all activities were resumed, including #Ebola vaccination pic.twitter.com/64yMFsat6M– World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) November 18, 2018
Health Minister Olu Ilunga Kalenga announced the suspension of operations on Saturday, one day after several a few meters from the local ambulance center and hotels of several response groups in Beni, North Kivu province
Peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in the Country (UNOMSCO) repulsed the offensive by the militias of the allied democratic forces (ADF) in qiin northern boyken late friday,
Seven Malaysians and one Tanzanian peacemaker were killed in the attack.
United States joins UN Security Council condemning the killing of one Tanzanian and seven Malawians @MONUSCO peacekeepers. The Council expresses our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the authorities and the people of Malawi, Tanzania, the DRC and the United Nations. pic.twitter.com/Wpp8MyP8xd
– United States Mission to the UN (@USUN) November 16, 2018
Also on Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that 16 of its employees were temporarily evacuated to Goma for psychological assistance after the shell had entered the building in which they were located.
Michelle Yao, WHO coordinator for operations in response to Ebola in Beni, told AFP news agency that no one was injured, adding that it was unknown whether the shell had arrived from the EPA or UNAMCO.
“WHO will continue to work side by side with the ministry and our partners to bring this Ebola outbreak to an end,” said Tedros Adan Gebreisus, head of WHO, in a statement.
“We honor the memory of those who died fighting this outbreak, and we regret the continuing threats to the safety of those who are still working to put an end to this,” he added.
The United Nations has also resumed operations, including vaccination, the UN health agency said in a statement.
The last outbreak of Ebola, the 10th country, caused 166 confirmed and 47 possible deaths, mainly in the mineral rich provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, which were the epicenter interethnic and police violence for decades.
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Worst flash
According to WHO, a total of 358 confirmed and probable cases were reported in the country.
This figure exceeds 318 cases reported in 1976, when the virus was first identified in Yambuku, in the Equatorial province.
“No other epidemic in the world was as complicated as the one we are experiencing now,” Olu Ilunga said that last week, adding that teams responding to an outbreak are attacked on average three or four times a week at an unprecedented level of violence compared to the nine previous outbreaks in the country.
“From the moment they arrived in the region, the response teams faced threats, physical attacks, repeated destruction of their equipment and abduction of people”, Olu Ilunga,
On Saturday, a ceremony was held for peacekeepers who were killed in the attack of the previous night.
Fifteen other peacekeepers were killed in an ADF attack on the MONUSCO base in Beni in December 2017.
An armed group was formed in neighboring Uganda in the 1990s. Forced from Uganda, it operates in the border zone in the North Kivu province of the DRC.
In Beni, the ADF has a brutal reputation. Over the past three years, he has been accused of hundreds of civilian deaths, as well as of mass rape and recruitment of children.
A SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and News Agencies
