The men took to drinking and drugs to get through the nights. Government officials sent them extra bottles of cane juice, they said.

“When you see 50, 70, 80 bodies like that every day, that the only way you can make it,” Mr. Willie said.

Then suddenly, just like that, it was over. In December, under intense public pressure and with the number of Ebola deaths declining, the government announced that it was ending cremations. A new 25-acre parcel had been secured, government officials said, to bury the Ebola dead.

For the 30 young men who carried out the task of burning more than 2,000 Ebola dead, the ordeal was over.

Except it wasn’t. “People still mock at us,” Mr. Roberts said. “When they see us, they say, ‘That’s Ebola burner them, oh.’ ”

Through the ordeal, the young men said they thought they would get government scholarships when it was all over. They thought they would be hailed as heroes, that people would apologize for shunning them. They are still waiting.

Mr. Roberts said that a few days ago, almost a year since the government ended the cremations, he tried to get into a taxi. One of the passengers spotted him and quickly turned to the driver. “He said, ‘This man worked in the fence, that Ebola burner, oh,’ ” Mr. Roberts recalled.

The response came quickly.

“Get down from the car,” the taxi driver insisted.