ABUJA (AFP) – The Liberian
government complained Thursday that its citizens were being harassed and “stereotyped”
in Nigeria following the death in a Lagos hospital of one of its citizens
infected with Ebola virus.
“The attention of our embassy has
been brought to several cases of harassment of Liberians especially in Lagos
and other places. This harassment borders on stereotyping and sometimes
expression of collective guilt,” Liberian ambassador to Nigeria, Martin George,
said.
The patient who brought the virus to
Lagos on July 20, Liberian finance ministry employee Patrick Sawyer, was placed
under quarantine at a private hospital. He died on July 25.
“Just because the ‘index case’ came
from Liberia, so ‘all Liberians in Nigeria have Ebola’. That is the message and
people are being harassed,” said the diplomat.
He was speaking during a meeting the
Nigerian Health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, held with heads of diplomatic
missions in the country on developments on Ebola virus.
Nigeria on Wednesday confirmed five
new cases of Ebola in Lagos and a second death from the virus, a nurse,
bringing the total number of infections in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city to
seven.
“There are law-abiding Liberians
living here in Nigeria who have been harassed. So I appeal for your indulgence
as you frame the responses especially on the radio talk shows. People have been
making all kind of derogatory remarks that have been brought to our attention,”
the Liberian diplomat said.
- ECOWAS suspends meetings -
Regional grouping ECOWAS also said
at the same meeting that it has suspended momentarily meetings that could bring
representatives of its member states together.
ECOWAS Commission vice president
Toga Mcintosh said that the management of the 15-nation grouping has decided
“to suspend all meetings that will bring us together coming from our various
countries”.
“Except if the mision is so
essential and well guided, we will approve. All other missions, meetings will
be suspended for a while.”
The suspension is initially for the
whole of August, after which the situation will be reviewed for further action,
an ECOWAS spokesman, Sunny Ugoh, told AFP.
The Lagos liaison office of the
Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) has been temporaily closed
down and fumigated, Mcintosh told the meeting.
It was clear that some ECOWAS
officials had primary contact with Sawyer in the organisation’s Lagos office
when he arrived, he also said, but gave no further details.
The Nigerian health minister said
Nigeria will begin to screen all outbound air travellers and if they are found
to have the Ebola virus, they will be asked to stay back.
“We don’t want them to go to other
countries and cause problems for those countries…. We can’t allow you to take
it (Ebola virus) to your country and cause problems for them,” Chukwu said.
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