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 treatment.
“We recognise the fear, uncertainty and frustration felt by many people,” the Red Cross said. “Building trust and maintaining dialogue with communities through community engagement remain essential to bringing the outbreak under control. Attacks against volunteers not only endanger lives, they also undermine efforts to contain the outbreak and protect communities.”
On social media, false claims have circulated rapidly, including claims that Ebola isn’t real, that health workers are deliberately infecting people, or that the humanitarian response is a moneymaking scheme. Doctors reportedly have resorted to debunking claims on the WhatsApp platform, which hosts groups centered in eastern DRC, some of which have thousands of members.
“In this era of social media, information spreads rapidly,” Mohammed Saani Yakubu, ActionAid’s director in the DRC, told The Wall Street Journal for a July 16 article. “Within a very short time, these voice notes circulate around entire WhatsApp groups. They are very harmful.”
Red Cross spokesperson Alex Lock said the attacks disrupt containment efforts and put community members at greater risk.
“An immobilised colleague means a direct reduction in response capacity,” he told The Guardian for a July 10 article. “This hinders our operational effectiveness and benefits no one, neither the community in need nor those of us working tirelessly to support them in containing and eradicating the virus.”
In a July 30 media briefing, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Jean Kaseya said that community leaders should be enlisted to help prevent attacks against healthcare workers, ensure safe burials and encourage case contacts to come forward for monitoring.
“We need to rethink the way to work with the community if we really want to stop this outbreak,” he said. “There is no magical solution unless we really work with communities.”