MONROVIA,
Liberia (AP) — Hundreds of residents of a Liberian slum lined up to
receive rice and water from government officials Thursday in their
neighborhood which was sealed off from the rest of the capital in an
attempt to halt the spread of Ebola.
Security
forces erected barbed-wire wrapped barricades on Wednesday to cut off
West Point. Food prices inside the impoverished peninsula began to rise
almost immediately. Residents clashed with police and soldiers hours
after their neighborhood was sealed off, furious that they were being
blamed and cut off from markets and jobs. But the situation was calm
Thursday."The township was quiet last night but what we now need is food," said Richard Kieh, a West Point resident Thursday morning.
By afternoon, government officials had arrived with bags of rice, sachets of drinking water and cooking oil. Hundreds of anxious residents lined up at the distribution point, and officials warned the operation could take all day. The World Food Program said it would also begin distributing food in the area in the coming days.
At least 50,000 people live in the half-mile-long (kilometer-long) West Point peninsula, where water is brought in by wheelbarrow and public defecation is a major problem.
The clashes Wednesday between West Point residents and security forces left at least three people injured, who were shown on a local TV station. A nationwide nighttime curfew, first imposed countrywide in Liberia on Wednesday night, has also been put in place to try to get the outbreak under control.
Liberia is being hit especially hard by the dreaded virus that has killed more than 1,300 people in West Africa in the largest outbreak of Ebola ever.
Several counties and districts in Sierra Leone and Liberia have been cordoned off, and there are concerns this is slowing the supply of food and other goods to these areas. The World Food Program is preparing to feed 1 million people affected by such travel restrictions.
The current outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria is the largest ever, and officials have said that treatment centers are filling up faster than new ones can be opened or expanded. This leaves the sick packing hallways, potentially infecting more people. http://newsok.com/liberia-gives-food-in-slum-sealed-to-stop-ebola/article/feed/725302?custom_click=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Newsok%2FNews+%28NewsOK.com+RSS+-+news%29
