News: 8 Ebola workers were sent in to help educate villagers, then fear took over – and the machetes came out

They were sent in to help educate villagers about how to ward off the lethal virus. Then fear took over and the machetes came out.

At the time of Wednesday’s announcement out of Guinea that seven of nine missing Ebola workers had been found dead, we knew little. Men with knives had abducted members of a group sent there to spread awareness about the disease. Two relief workers were missing; the rest, dead. Six suspects were in custody.

By Friday morning, we knew more. These details, the stuff of horror films. A local government group of relief workers—a mix of doctors, religious leaders, and journalists—had arrived Monday to educate the remote southeastern village of Womey about Ebola. Just 24 hours after their arrival, violence broke out, allegedly sparked by the false belief that a disinfectant being sprayed was actually the disease itself. An angry mob brandishing machetes, stones, and knives lashed out.

Some of the relief workers were lucky enough to escape to nearby villages. At least nine were not. Three had their throats slashed. By then, villagers themselves began to flee. Those still in Womey cut down trees and fashioned makeshift blockades so no one else could get inside the village. Two days later, when authorities did, they found eight bodies in the latrine system of the local school. Among the dead, three local radio journalists, two medical officers, and a preacher.

In a story so horrific, the grisliest details win the audience. The killers murdered, in cold blood, the very people that came to save them. It’s easy to call such actions evil—but entirely irresponsible to declare, with absolute certainty, that they were driven by anything less than unimaginable fear.

We know little about the identity of the six suspects, but a lot about the country in which they live. 

By the time the Ebola workers arrived to Womey—on a vital mission that may have very well helped it—the village was likely overcome by fear and panic. Two months earlier in Kolo Bengou, a remote part of Guinea 400 miles from the capital, terrified villagers attacked ambulances and dismantled bridges to keep doctors out. In Guéckédou the same month, reported The New York Times, a local leader perpetuated the mistrust, telling his people: “There is no root, no leaf, no animal that can cure you. Don’t be fooled.”