Burial workers in Sierra Leone have dumped bodies in the street outside a hospital in protest at authorities’ failure to pay bonuses for handling Ebola victims.
Residents said up to 15 corpses had been abandoned in the eastern town of Kenema, three of them at a hospital entrance to stop people entering.
Abdul-Wahab Wan, Head of the District Ebola Response Team, said the bodies included those of two babies.
A spokesman for the striking workers, who preferred anonymity, said they had not been paid their weekly hazard allowance for seven weeks.
He said in spite of pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and the deployment of U.S. and British troops, the weakness of healthcare systems and infrastructure in the affected countries has hampered the fight against the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus on record.
Authorities acknowledged the money had not been paid but said that all the striking members of the Ebola Burial Team would be dismissed.
Sidi Tunis, Spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre, said displaying corpses in a very, inhumane manner was unethical and completely unacceptable.
He said that the central government had paid the money to the district health management team.
“Somebody somewhere needs to be investigated (to find out) where these monies have been going,” he said.
