Liberian officials confirmed a third case of Ebola on Thursday, two months after the country had declared itself Ebola free.
A case management leader for the country’s Ebola Task Force says that the three villagers with the disease “have a history of having had dog meat together.” Dog meat is common in the diet of Liberians.
The first confirmed case, a 17-year-old boy, died Sunday about 30 miles from the capital city of Monrovia. The other two cases are in the same village as the dead teen.
“The two (latest) live cases are 24 years old and 27 years old. They are stable,” Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said on Thursday.
Scientists say that there is no proof yet that dogs can carry the Ebola virus. Humans have been infected in past outbreaks by eating contaminated monkey meat.
“There is no need to panic. Our health team is on top of it. It will be contained,” Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told Reuters.
At least 175 people are being monitored because of contact with the three confirmed cases.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has made persecution of Christians a major part of his Islamic dominated government, is on the run after the International Criminal Court declared him a war criminal.
The President returned to Sudan from South Africa, defying a court order to stay in that nation while the government of South Africa considered the ICC’s request for al-Bashir’s arrest. He had been attending an African Union summit in Pretoria at the time of the warrant being issued for his arrest.
The South African government eventually issued the order for arrest about two hours after al-Bashir flew out of the country.
“We still remain quietly optimistic and determined to see justice done in this case,” deputy prosecutor James Stewart told the BBC.
U.N. head Ban Ki-moon reminded nations that have signed the ICC’s statues they’re obligated to arrest those who are sought by the court.
“The president of the assembly expresses his deep concern about the negative consequences for the court in case of non-execution of the warrants by states parties and, in this regard, urges them to respect their obligations to cooperate with the court,” said in a statement H.E. Mr. Sidiki Kaba, president of the Assembly of States to the Rome Statute of the ICC.
The charges are in connection with the genocide in Darfur and al-Bashir’s actions in setting up a strict Sharia law system in his country that included the killing of non-Muslims. While he will be able to move freely within Sudan, he will not be able to leave the country for fear of arrest.
Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has violently killed dozens of Christians to death in their latest raids on villages.
Boko Haram killed 29 people in Adamawa state and most of the dead are Christians. The killings come a week after the terrorists hacked to death 10 Christians in Pambula-Kwamda.
They destroyed the telephone mast first before invading our community — this was to prevent us from telephoning and requesting help,” said one community pastor. “They killed 10 members of our church [Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, or EYN] using machetes and then slaughtering them.”
Military officials also say that Boko Haram is the likely source of suicide bomb attacks in a Christian community on May 19th that left nine people dead. They are also believed behind a shooting attack in Wagga.
“The attacks killed 19 people in Garkida and Madagali,” said the Rev. Samuel Dante Dali, president of the EYN. “The bombing signals a renewal of violence by the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram at a time when Nigerian authorities are claiming victory in many parts of the northeast.”
The town of Gubio was attacked and burned Wednesday night leaving 37 men, women and children dead. Over 400 buildings were destroyed in the terrorist attack.
Italian officials have 15 Muslims under arrested after it was discovered they singled out Christians to throw overboard during a crossing from Africa to Italy.
Authorities in Palermo, Sicily, are charging the Muslims with suspicion of murder.
The Christians were part of a boatload of migrants who left Libya Tuesday in a rubber boat. Police say the Muslims, who are from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal, began to throw the Christians overboard as they were in the middle of the crossing.
The dead are from Nigeria and Ghana.
The remaining passengers reportedly formed a human chain to stop the Muslims from being able to kill anyone else on the boat.
Thousands each year attempt to make the voyage from Africa to the European coast and die in the process. Rarely do people die from deliberate means as the Christians who were killed in this incident.
Surviving by drinking lotion while hiding in a closet, a Kenyan teenager is praising God for surviving the brutal attack by Islamic terrorists on a University in Garissa.
Cynthia Cheroitich, 19, spoke to reporters at a local hospital after being treated for dehydration and malnourishment.
“I was just praying to my God, saying that if it has come to my day, it has reached. But if it not yet, let God decide whatever He likes,” she said.
She said that she chose the closet after the Islamist gunmen yelled any student hiding under their beds would “come out very fast.” She covered herself with clothes so that a quick check of the closet wouldn’t reveal her presence.
She said that when she began to feel hungry and thirsty, her only option was a bottle of body oil.
Cynthia was so terrified that she did not believe at first the Kenyan military forces were actually there to help her. The troops had to find a teacher to explain to the girl that it was safe to leave the closet.
The Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab admitted the attack which was targeting Christian students. Witnesses said that the terrorists would ask who the student worshiped and if they answered Christ they were shot on the spot.
The Christian aid group Christian Aid Mission is calling on the world’s believers to pray for the Christians of Kenya after a crackdown by the government on charity groups within the nation.
Amie Cotton with CAM says that al-Shabaab sympathizers had been using charity and non-profit organizations as a way to funnel money to the terrorist organization. As a result, the government has banned all groups in the country.
A result of the ban is that churches in the region are closing down as terrorist groups intimidate those in the communities and the churches have no funding to try and fight the groups. However, Cotton says God’s work is still going forward.
“Despite all of this, we still have reports that ministry is ongoing in multiple cities,” says Cotton. “They go out every day, on the edge, knowing that terrorists have infiltrated. But they’re willing to go for the cause of Christ.”
Cotton says that despite the ban of NGOs, the group is still going to work through relationships with residents of the country.
“We have been in existence for over 60 years, and we have relationships with grass-roots Christian ministries that are indigenous to their cities and to Kenya as a whole,” Cotton answers.
Officials in Borno State are reporting a massacre over the weekend in the Christian town of Shani carried out by Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
The communications with the town were cut off during the attack and officials say they are just now learning the scope of the attack.
A resident of the town told the Nigerian Daily Post that Boko Haram descended on the town around 8 p.m. local time on Saturday.
“They came on about 10 motorcycles from Gwaskara axis, well armed with Ak47 rifles, improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs, wrecking havoc without confrontation as there was no military operatives, nor police to assist the armless civilians who were running for dear lives,” the witness said.
The witness said at least two dozen people were killed and many businesses looted.
“A boy ran into my shop and said his father and elder brother had been shot. He was only wearing shorts, no top and sweating despite the wintry weather. I shut down my shop immediately, leaving some items outside,” business-owner Shuabu Lawal said.
On the heels of the United Nations saying it lacked the resources necessary to stop the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, President Obama is asking Congress for billions in aid to fight the killer virus.
The President wants $6.18 billion to fund efforts both within the U.S. and in Africa to combat the virus.
“The funding is needed immediately to strengthen and sustain our whole-of-government response to strengthen preparedness in the U.S. and to help end the Ebola epidemic at its source in West Africa, and to prevent disease outbreaks, detect them early, and swiftly respond before they become epidemics that threaten the American people,” the administration said. “It’s in situations like this one, when activities surpass the current level of funding, that the request is deemed an emergency.”
The World Health Organization reported Wednesday that the death toll is at least 4,818 people out of 13,042 confirmed cases.
The head of the U.N. mission fighting the virus said there are still villages in the impacted countries that have received no aid or help from outside their nation.
“It’s not here yet,” Tony Banbury said about the needed resources. “There are still people, villages, towns [and] areas that [are] not getting any type of help right now and we definitely don’t have the response capability on the ground now from the international community.”
A nurse who worked on Ebola patients in Sierra Leone who returned to the U.S. and complained about mandatory quarantine is now flaunting a voluntary quarantine.
Kaci Hickox, 33, had been working in Sierra Leone as part of Doctors Without Borders. New Jersey officials ordered her into quarantine when she returned to the United States and she hired lawyers to challenge the ruling. She eventually was allowed to leave for her home state of Maine if she agreed to a voluntary quarantine.
Hickok said she would flaunt any quarantine order because she believes there’s no risk of exposing anyone to Ebola because she’s not sick.
She left her home to take a bike ride with her boyfriend this morning in full view of national media cameras. Her lawyer said that because Hickox didn’t want to “freak people out” she didn’t ride through the center of town.
“Since there’s no court order, she can be out in public,” Siegel said. “Even if people disagree with her position, I would hope they respect the fact that she’s taking into account the fear, which is based on misinformation about the way the disease is transmitted.”
Hickox and her lawyer claim the orders for quarantine are just politically motivated.
The long fight against the Ebola virus received very good news Tuesday when two African nations were declared free of the virus.
Nigeria and Senegal, who both combined had 20 cases of the virus and 7 deaths (all in Nigeria), have been free of any new cases for six weeks.
“This is a spectacular success story,” World Health Organization Representative Rui Gama Vaz told Reuters. “It shows that Ebola can be contained, but we must be clear that we have only won a battle, the war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola.”
The government of Nigeria was given praise considering the virus was discovered in Lagos, a city of 21 million where tracing contacts of residents can be almost impossible.
“Nigeria was not really prepared for the outbreak, but the swift response from the federal government, state governments (and) international organizations … was essential,” said Samuel Matoka, IFRC Ebola operations manager for Lagos. “The swiftness and fastness of the reaction from all parties, helped to contain Ebola in Nigeria.”
The World Health Organization says Nigeria could be a model for nations around the world in dealing with Ebola.