Ebola crisis: Red Cross says Guinea aid workers face attacks

Ebola crisis: Red Cross says Guinea aid workers face attacks

The ICRC said attacks on its volunteers were "unacceptable"
Aid workers fighting Ebola in Guinea are being subjected to an average of 10
attacks every month, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says.
The latest assault happened on Sunday when two Guinean Red Cross volunteers
were beaten by locals while trying to conduct a safe burial, the group said.
Last year eight aid workers were hacked to death in Guinea.
It came as the US said it would pull out troops stationed in Liberia to help contain
the virus.
US President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that all but 100 of the
soldiers remaining in the country would leave by the end of April.
There were 2,800 US troops in West Africa at the height of the epidemic, but
about 1,500 have already left the region.
Mr Obama said about 10,000 "civilian responders" would stay in West Africa to
fight the virus.
'Huge suspicion'
In a statement released on Thursday, the president of the Guinean Red Cross,
Youssouf Traore, said Ebola would not be stopped until people change their
perceptions of the disease.
"Acts of violence committed against [volunteers] are completely unacceptable,"
he added.
The attacks against the group's workers ranged from verbal abuse to physical
confrontations, the ICRC reported.
There is still a huge amount of suspicion among some West Africans surrounding
the virus, said BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper.
Guineans often believe that those who come to bury the dead, disinfect areas and
dispel myths are in fact spreading the disease, she added.
Unsafe burial practices are one of the challenges that still need to be overcome
Encouraging decline
The announcement about the pullout of US troops from Liberia follows the news
that the number of new Ebola cases has risen for the second consecutive week,
ending a period of encouraging declines.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says Sierra Leone has registered 76 of the
144 new cases, while Guinea has registered 65 and Liberia three.
Despite the rise Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf Johnson has told the BBC she is
"very optimistic that Ebola can be beaten".
Last week, Liberia had just a handful of confirmed Ebola cases, down from about
300 a week in August and September 2014.
Speaking to the BBC World Service's Newshour, the Liberian president addressed
concerns that the international response to the Ebola virus had been too slow.
Although there had been a "delay" in other countries offering help to fight the
virus, when assistance did arrive "it came so fully and so effectively that we can
say that success is also owed to the international community", she said.
She said the poor state of Liberia's healthcare system had exacerbated the
problem of trying to contain the spread of the virus initially, and called on the
world to "work with us" in improving the system.
She added that co-operation with Liberia's neighbours was required to contain the
virus, due to the country's "porous borders that are very long [and] unprotected".
President Obama (left) said the pullout of the vast majority of US troops fighting
Ebola in Liberia marked "the next phase of the fight"
Almost 23,000 people have been infected with Ebola since its outbreak in Guinea
in December 2013, and more than 9,000 people have died.
The WHO has said that the increase in new cases highlights the "considerable
challenges" that must still be overcome to end the outbreak.