"50,000 quarantined in Liberia slum to contain spread of Ebola"

[suffragette]

http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2024355394_liberiabarricadexml.html


MONROVIA, Liberia — Riot police and soldiers acting on their president’s orders used scrap wood and barbed wire to seal 50,000 people inside their Liberian slum Wednesday, trying to contain the Ebola outbreak that has killed 1,350 people and counting across West Africa.

Soldiers repelled the surging crowd with live rounds, driving hundreds of men and boys back into the slum known as West Point. One in the crowd, Shakie Kamara, 15, lay on the ground near the barricade, his right leg apparently wounded by a bullet. “Help me,” pleaded Kamara, who was barefoot and wore a green Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt.

Lt. Col. Abraham Kromah, the national police’s head of operations, arrived a few minutes later. “This is messed up,” he said, looking at the teenager while complaining about the surging crowd. “They injured one of my police officers. That’s not cool. It’s a group of criminals that did this. Look at this child. God in heaven help us.” It was unclear what happened to Kamara.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the death toll is rising most quickly in Liberia, which accounts for at least 576 of the deaths. At least 2,473 people have been sickened across West Africa.



Elsewhere in the article, it notes this is the neighborhood in which an Ebola center was recently raided. It adds new context that the residents in the neighborhood had feared their area was being turned into a "dumping ground for the disease."

It also includes that at least one family of a local official was escorted out, which likely compounds people's fears of how they are being treated differently - flights to safety for those with power and an armed quarantine for those without.

There's no info in the article about how these residents or others in another area placed in quarantine will receive, water, food or health care.

They must be terrified.

edited to add photo and link to additional photos that show conditions there



http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ebola-outbreak-photos-fear-panic-liberian-forces-seal-west-point-slum-contain-disease-1461985

[HooptieWagon]

1. That should ensure all 50,000 get infected.

Yikes. I can't imagine the horror.

[suffragette]

3. I can't either

And from this and other articles, it looks like essentials such as water and food are in short supply in these areas on top of it.
This article noted people had to bring in water in wheelbarrows.
How will they get it now?

An older article on France24 stated 3 provinces under quarantine. Not sure if these are same or different areas. And it noted problems with food shortages at that time.
Sounds like it is all getting worse.

http://www.france24.com/en/20140811-liberia-puts-third-province-under-ebola-quarantine/

The quarantine has meant that traders have been unable to travel to buy food and farmers cannot harvest their crop, which has in turn caused shortages and sent prices soaring, raising fears people could go hungry.

[Octafish]

2. ''...at least one family of a local official was escorted out...''

...compounding the problems in new dimensions.

[suffragette]

4. Yes, the inequity of that caught my eye right away

And it must be compounding their fear and anger. How would it not for any human caught in this situation?


From the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/21/ebola-quarantine-violence-west-point-monrovia-liberia
Violence erupted in an Ebola quarantine zone in Liberia's capital when soldiers opened fire and used teargas on crowds as they evacuated a state official and her family.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/21/liberia-ebola-quarantine-photos_n_5696120.html

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has claimed more than 1,300 lives and Liberia has the highest -- and fastest rising -- death toll, according to the World Health Organization. After long years of war and government corruption, many in the country do not trust the authorities and have resisted efforts to isolate people who have been infected.

On Wednesday, Liberian security forces sealed off the West Point slum in the capital city of Monrovia in an effort to contain the virus, causing hundreds of angry residents to clash with riot police and troops enforcing the quarantine. They told Reuters that they had no advance warning of the lockdown so were unable to get out to buy food. According to National Geographic there are fears that more than a million people living in Ebola quarantine zones in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone may be cut off from food and supplies.

In Liberia's West Point, security forces pushed back stone-throwing crowds with live rounds and tear gas, injuring four people, Reuters reported. Images from the slum showed troops beating back residents as they challenged the lockdown.


I can't seem to post any of the photos here, but it would help to do so since they show the situation.

[Octafish]

8. On the best of days, Liberia is a difficult place to live.

http://childrenssurgeryintl.blogspot.com/2012/01/day-1-in-liberia-csi-mission-to-liberia.html

Now it seems to becoming a horrible place the likes of which seemed unimaginable a few years ago.

Thank you for keeping us up-to-date on the reality facing the 50,000 in the shantytown and the millions of good people of Liberia, suffragette.

We need to know what the reality is in order to do what is necessary to help the people in Liberia and the rest of the world. The reason so few don't know is that the powers-that-be -- those with money and power -- don't want to have to pay for extra people. Disease, poverty, starvation are their tools to live their "lifestyles of the rich and famous."

[KamaAina]

10. And we helped make it that way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia

Liberia is the only country in Africa founded by United States colonization while occupied by native Africans. Beginning in 1820, the region was colonized by African Americans, most of whom were freed slaves. The colonizers (who later become known as Americo-Liberians) established a new country with the help of the American Colonization Society, a private organization whose leaders thought former slaves would have greater opportunity in Africa. African captives freed from slave ships by the British and Americans were sent there instead of being repatriated to their countries of origin.

In 1847, this new country became the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled on that of the United States and naming its capital city Monrovia after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States and a prominent supporter of the colonization. The colonists and their descendants, known as Americo-Liberians, led the political, social, cultural and economic sectors of the country and ruled the nation for over 130 years as a dominant minority.

The country began to modernize in the 1940s following investment by the United States during World War II and economic liberalization under President William Tubman. Liberia was a founding member of the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity. In 1980 a military coup overthrew the Americo-Liberian leadership, marking the beginning of political and economic instability and two successive civil wars. These resulted in the deaths of between 250,000 and 520,000 people and devastated the country's economy. A peace agreement in 2003 led to democratic elections in 2005. Today, Liberia is recovering from the lingering effects of the civil wars and their consequent economic upheaval, but about 85% of the population continue to live below the international poverty line.

[Octafish]

11. Pat Robertson used to really dig the place.

Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incoporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist

[suffragette]

15. War and division make everything worse

Last edited Thu Aug 21, 2014, 03:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Thanks for the link and history. I knew some of this on a general level, but am learning much more now.

Agree completely with the important points you make.

I added a photo to my original post and added a link with more photos and more specifics of what is occurring there.

It is horrific.

[flamingdem]

5. Wow

How is that even possible. People will find a way out.

[suffragette]

6. "People will find a way out."

Yes, they will. Especially with low food and water. And this area is near the coast.

They must feel that they are being corralled to die.

I posted a link above from Huffpo that has photos, but can't figure out how to post them in the thread using my iPad.

[flamingdem]

7. One problem is ignorance, they attacked the clinic because

they didn't believe that the Ebola threat was real.

The UN should get involved and at a minimum get them food and water. The problem is that means they's be condoning the action I suppose.

[suffragette]

9. Agree that is another problem adding fuel.

That's also part of what caught my attention to the part about people destroying the center because they viewed opening it in their neighborhood as an effort to "dump" the disease there, away from other areas.
I had not seen that raised in earlier articles about the same incident.
It places a very different context on it.
It reminds me of what happens in our own backyard, of jails and polluting companies being placed in poorer neighborhoods, often over the residents' objections.
Similar pattern, though to a higher degree.

Agree about the need for the UN to get involved.

[flamingdem]

14. I read that they thought it was a government inspired

plot of some kind but it makes more sense that they felt it was being dumped in their neighborhood. Still the attack was ignorant and they ran off with bedding from the patients etc. that was infected.

[suffragette]

16. Yes, and now some of those mattresses are floating in water there

I added a link to the OP which has several photos, one being of the mattresses.

It looks like conditions there were already awful. Now they are even worse.

And the action of those who attacked that center has caused even more danger. Ignorance, fear and desperation are a dangerous stew.

Some of the photos show a young boy whose mother died, possibly from Ebola, and no one will take in him out of fear. He's undiagnosed. A clinic refused to treat him, again from fear.

[redqueen]

12. It must be terrifying, they woke up to find they were trapped.

And things seem to only be getting worse.

Beyond the threat of Ebola, experts warn that there has been a broader collapse of Liberia’s public-health system, resulting in a range of life-threatening illnesses and conditions that are being left untreated as hospitals close and the facilities that remain open become overwhelmed with suspected Ebola cases.

“The emergency within the emergency is the collapse of the health-care system,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors without Borders, who recently surveyed Liberia and other affected nations.

“People don’t have access to basic health care,” she said

[suffragette]

13. Yes, terrifying to wake up to a nightmare.

And the collapse of the health care system there means people with other diseases or conditions aren't being treated for those either.
That is a huge extensive issue.

I have added a photo and a link to an article that has numerous photos from the quarantine area. It is heartbreaking.

[redqueen]

17. I saw some of those pictures on the news this morning.

Heartbreaking is exactly right

[Skittles]

18. this is horrible

it's the wrong way to do things, very wrong

I recently lent money via KIVA to a gal in Liberia and I think about her often

[suffragette]

19. Ah, Skittles. You are such a caring person.

It all seems to be getting ever worse there.
I hope the woman you are helping is able to stay safe.

[Skittles]

20. :)

Maria in Paraguay, Speciose in Rwanda and Mary in Liberia - all for supplies for their businesses.......it's really an awesome program

yes, very worried about Liberia

[Uncle Joe]

21. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, suffragette.

[suffragette]

22. Thank you Uncle Joe.