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Young men storm a Congo hospital treating Ebola patients to demand bodies of their relatives (No. 3!

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Fishrrman:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/25/africa/congo-hospital-ebola-intl

Young men storm a Congo hospital treating Ebola patients to demand bodies of their relatives
(Poster's note: this is now the THIRD attack on an Ebola treatment center)

Angry young men stormed a hospital treating Ebola patients at the heart of the latest outbreak of the disease in eastern Congo on Sunday evening, forcing the medical staff to scramble to evacuate the patients as gunfire rang out in the area.

It was not immediately known if anyone was hurt in the attack on the Mongbwalu General Hospital but Dr. Richard Lokudu, the hospital’s medical director, told The Associated Press the attackers demanded that two bodies of their relatives be handed over to them.

There was gunfire and the medics were trying to evacuate the patients and the staff, Lokudu said over the phone.

“Mongbwalu General Hospital is on general alert,” he added. He did not have any further details of the unfolding turmoil.

The attack – the third in a week’s time on health care facilities where medical workers struggle with lack of resources to treat suspected Ebola cases - underlined the challenges of the outbreak, which the World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern.

Bodies of those who died of Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare them for burial and gather for funerals.

In response to the outbreak, Congolese authorities have mandated that the dangerous work of burying suspected victims be managed wherever possible by authorities, which can be met by protests from families and friends. On Friday, the government said funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people would be banned in northeastern Congo in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

On Saturday, a group of residents of Mongbwalu, located in Ituri province, attacked and set fire to a tent set up for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases by the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group.

During that attack, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections left the facility and were now unaccounted for, Lokudu had said earlier.

On Thursday, another treatment center, in the town of Rwampara, was burned down after family members were banned from retrieving the body of a local man suspected to have died of Ebola.

More at URL above...

Prediction:
This is going to get MUCH worse, before it gets better.
We are going to need strict controls on who is permitted to enter the USA from Africa...

Hoodat:
There's a Clancy book about Iran engineering Ebola to go airborne, and then releasing it on 15 US cities.

Wingnut:
3 World shithole problems.  Coming soon to the USA.

Smokin Joe:
Part of the problem is funeral customs in that part of Africa, which involve the relatives washing the body before wrapping it up for burial. The corpse continues to shed the virus after death, and this is how whole villages get wiped out, burying their dead, which means more dead, which means more dead, until they run out of people to infect. Most who catch it will die, depending on subclade, at least early in the outbreak, even if medical care is available.

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