Throats slit: Ebola health team, journalists brutally killed in Guinea

Reuters / 2Tango

RT

The bodies of eight people – including three journalists – were found in Guinea after an Ebola health team came under attack two days ago, officials said. Meanwhile, the UN plans to deploy a special mission to fight the virus in the worst-hit countries.

The group, which included three doctors and three journalists, is said to have been attacked near Nzerekore, a city near Guinea’s southern tip. With the Ebola death toll now topping 2,600, the team was sent to the area to help raise awareness about the virus. They had been missing since Tuesday.

The six were found dead on Thursday. The identities of the other two bodies are currently unknown.

Government spokesman Damantang Albert Camara told Reuters that the workers and journalists were brutally beaten to death.

“The eight bodies were found in the village latrine. Three of them had their throats slit,” he said.

Earlier this week, the team members met with locals. A resident named Yves told the Guardian that there were no problems until after that assembly took place.

“The meeting started off well; the traditional chiefs welcomed the delegation with 10 kola nuts as a traditional greeting,” Yves said. “It was afterwards that some youths came out and started stoning them. They dragged some of them away, and damaged their vehicles.”

Health worker burn used protection gear at the NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) center in Conakry on September 13, 2014.(AFP Photo / Cellou Binani)

The dangers of Ebola have been difficult to communicate in some rural villages, where suspicion of health workers reigns. Last month in Nzerekore, riots erupted when workers reportedly “tried to spray the local market,” leading residents to believe they were actually spreading the virus themselves.

As the virus continues to tear through West Africa, the UN announced on Thursday that it is creating a special mission to fight the disease in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone – the three countries where the virus has done the worst damage. The move came just as the UN Security Council called the outbreak “a threat to international peace and security.”

Co-sponsored by 131 nations, the plan will involve mobilizing money, personnel, and supplies to victims.

“This international mission...will have five priorities: stopping the outbreak, treating the infected, ensuring essential services, preserving stability and preventing further outbreaks,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said to the Security Council.

Other countries have also been stepping up aid to the region. The United States announced on Tuesday that it is sending 3,000 troops to West Africa, and that it will build 17 new treatment centers. France will install a military hospital in Guinea. Britain, China, and Cuba have promised to send health workers to the region.

Jackson Naimah, a health team leader in Liberia, told the Security Council that more help is desperately needed.

“We are trying to treat as many people as we can, but there are not nearly enough treatment centers and patient beds,” he said, according to Reuters. “People are sitting at the gates of our centers, literally begging for their lives. They rightly feel alone, neglected, denied – left to die a horrible, undignified death.”

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specif

ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Search This Blog