Treatment centres half-empty as families keep infected at home to avoid presidential decree that Ebola victims must be cremated

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Even as Liberians fall ill and die of Ebola, many beds in treatment centres are empty because of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims in the capital be cremated.

Cremation violates values and cultural practices in the western African country. The order has so disturbed people that the sick are often kept at home and, if they die, are being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf decreed in August that the bodies of Ebola victims in the Monrovia area be cremated. The government brought in a crematorium and hired experts. The order came after people in neighbourhoods of the capital resisted the burial of hundreds of Ebola victims near their homes.

A recent analysis of bed space at Ebola treatment units concluded that out of 742 spaces, only 351 were occupied, said assistant health minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads the government’s Ebola response.

“For fear of cremation, do not stay home to die,” Nyenswah urged Liberians at a news conference.

Cremations in the capital, and burials of Ebola victims in body bags outside Monrovia without relatives present, means there won’t be a place to honour deceased relatives. Decoration days, where people flock to cemeteries to clean and decorate the graves of relatives, will come with many not knowing where the location of the remains of their loved ones. People will find it hard to accept that they will never see the graves of those killed by the disease.

“We know cremation is not our culture in our country,” Nyenswah said. “But now we have disease, so we have to change the way we used to do business.”

The World Health Organisation says at least 4,665 people have been infected with Ebola in Liberia, 2,705 have died, and there are probably more cases and deaths.

Nyenswah said: “We understand that there are secret burials taking place in the communities,” he said. “Let’s stop that and report sick people and get them treated.”

Mortuaries and coffin makers have lost business under the new regulations.

“For the last two months it has been difficult to sell even one casket a day,” said Titus Mulbah, an owner of the Talented Brothers Casket Centre. “And this is all because all bodies now are considered Ebola bodies, as if other diseases are not killing people here.”

There had been complaints that people who died of something other than Ebola had been cremated or buried anonymously.

Television journalist Eddie Harmon said the body of his sister-in-law was added to the bodies of Ebola victims and cremated, even though the family believes she died of hypertension.

“It is still paining us today because it was unjust and unfair,” he said.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone, where families often picnic in cemeteries and clean graves on New Year’s Day, there have been 1,259 Ebola deaths, according to the latest WHO count. Unlike Liberia, the government has not ordered cremations. Ebola treatment units in Sierra Leone have often been full.

Still, there is the possibility that loved ones might be buried in unmarked graves and some families observe traditional practices in which mourners wash and lay hands on the body. Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids.

Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response, said people must change.

“The world has never seen a serious, grave and complex crisis of this nature where people are dying every day with unsafe burial practices,” he said in Freetown, the Sierra Leone capital.

A commentary on a website, Sierra Leone News Hunters, suggested that a memorial site be built to honour Ebola victims not buried traditionally.

It said: “The erection of a monument bearing the names of all Ebola victims would not take away the sad memories but it would at least pacify the broken heart somewhat.”