Attack on DR Congo Ebola centre leaves one dead

BUTEMBO: Armed men attacked an Ebola treatment centre in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo again on Saturday, killing a policeman and wounding a health worker, the authorities said. The facility, located at Butembo in the troubled province of North Kivu, only reopened last Saturday after an attack by gunmen the previous Wednesday forced its closure. “Shooting started at about six in the morning (0400 GMT) and resumed 30 minutes later with resistance from the army and the police,” Butembo mayor Sylvain Kanyamanda Mbusa told AFP. The health worker was shot and was being treated in hospital. “The army and the police caught one of the attackers,” he said, hoping it would help understand the motive for the raid which came just a few hours before World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was to visit the centre. It was the third attack on the centre, said the mayor of the city of a million people. He branded the attackers “terrorists” who wanted to “kill the sick” and said the captured attacker was a member of the Mai-Mai rebel group. Efforts to curb the DR Congo’s worst Ebola outbreak are stumbling, medical charity MSF warned Thursday, blaming the role of the security forces in the response and their “toxic” relations with local communities.