Monrovia (AFP) - The crematorium in the Liberian capital Monrovia is struggling to deal with the dozens of Ebola victims whose bodies are being brought each day, the Red Cross said Thursday.
Fayah Tamba, the
secretary-general of the Liberian division of the charity, said workers
were having to return corpses to a hospital in the city after being told
there was not the capacity to cremate all the victims.
She
told a local radio station that she believes it may now be necessary
for international organisations to take over responsibility for handling
the crisis from the national authorities.
Liberia
has seen the biggest toll among the four west African countries hit by
Ebola, with 576 deaths from 972 diagnosed cases to date.
Speaking
just hours before a UN-appointed doctor was due to arrive in the region
to help combat the spread of the disease, Tamba said that Liberia also
needed help to deal with the dead.
"We
are constrained... On Saturday our team was able to collect up to 41
bodies. On Sunday they collected up to 37 bodies. The crematorium did
not have the capacity to cremate all these bodies, so we had to... carry
them (back) to ELWA," the hospital in the capital, she told a local
radio station.
"The next
morning we had to make sure to carry these bodies to the crematorium and
make sure they were cremated before we could start collecting new
ones," she said.
She suggested that international assistance might now also be helpful as the country struggles to contain the outbreak.
"As
it is today, based on our experience, when you have a situation of this
calamity, of this magnitude, we think it is important for us to have an
international organisation that will coordinate the humanitarian
intervention," she said.
Her comments came after a chaotic day in
Liberia's capital on Wednesday, with violence erupting in an Ebola
quarantine zone after soldiers opened fire and used tear gas on
protesting crowds.
Liberian
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had ordered a nightime curfew and the
quarantine of Monrovia's West Point slum and Dolo Town, to the east of
the capital, in a bid to stem the outbreak.
According
to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, the Ebola
outbreak -- the worst ever-recorded -- has killed at least 1,350 people,
576 in Liberia, 396 in Guinea, and 374 in Sierra Leone. http://news.yahoo.com/monrovia-crematorium-cannot-cope-ebola-surge-red-cross-181407311.html
