Youth caravan steps up Ebola awareness amid attacks on response teams

Young people rode bicycles and marched through the city of Beni on Friday to raise awareness and boost youth involvement in the response to tackle a deadly Ebola outbreak.

The caravan, organized by young people with support from Congolese NGOs and the World Health Organization, followed a series of attacks on Ebola response teams in Beni and surrounding health zones.

Just this week, burial teams were attacked in Beni, leaving staff injured, and treatment centers have been burned in the hotspots of Mongbwalu and Rwampara.

Beni was the epicenter of the 2018-2020 Ebola epidemic and has been hit again this year.

The current outbreak recently became the second deadliest ever, outpacing the 2018 outbreak just months after it was declared, and is on track to become the largest in history, spreading several times faster than the 2014 West Africa outbreak.

Organizers said the violence was tangled up with the region's deeper insecurity.

"At the same time that the Ebola virus disease showed up, it has coincided with the sudden appearance of insecurity in the city of Beni. That's why you'll see that tensions are high. The population does not understand," said Paulin Livimba, vice president of the Beni Urban Youth Council.

He appealed for more help from the government, saying that while tens of millions of dollars had been unlocked, "so far on the ground, there is no impact."

Sylvie Kalumbi, a leader of the One Girl One organization, said the caravan aimed to counter hostility toward health workers.

"When response teams arrive to do their work, there are young people who attack them," she said.

"This activity is organized to show these young people that the disease really exists, and we must all join our efforts so that this disease can be eradicated."

Response teams in Ituri and North Kivu provinces have faced intense mistrust, fueled by rumors and misinformation, in a region also torn by violence from multiple armed groups.

"There have been a lot of rumors, there is a lot of misinformation. So all that was part of why there has been mistrust," said Philemon Kambale, who works in community engagement for Congo's Health Ministry.

"It is the commitment of the community, of the youth, of the population that will allow us to end this epidemic."