Health team butchered in Guinea as Ebola outbreak accelerates

Eight members of a medical team attempting to raise awareness about Ebola have been killed by villagers using machetes and clubs in Guinea.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The bodies of health workers, local officials and journalists were found in a septic tank in a village school near the city of Nzerekore, murdered by villagers suspicious of official attempts to combat Ebola, which has now killed more than 2,600 people in West Africa.

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The West African Ebola outbreak is the world's worst, and officials warn that more than 20,000 people could ultimately become infected with the deadly disease. Other nations infected with the outbreak have begun controversial programs aimed at stopping the spread of the disease, including a three-day curfew in Sierra Leone.

The aid team was pelted with stones after they arrived in the village of Wome in southern Guinea, where the outbreak was first recorded, and ended up hiding.

A journalist who escaped the attack reported that she could hear the villagers looking for the team while she was hiding.

A government delegation was dispatched to the region, but they were unable to reach the village by road because the main bridge had been blocked.

Government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said the victims had been "killed in cold blood by the villagers".

Six people have been arrested in conjunction with the attack, and the village is reportedly now deserted.

A motive for the killings has not been confirmed, but officials say many villagers accuse the health workers of spreading the disease and others do not believe the disease exists.

In August, riots erupted in Nzerekore after rumors spread that medics who were disinfecting a market were contaminating people.

French President Francois Hollande said that France is setting up a military hospital in Guinea as part of the international effort to support West African nations suffering from the outbreak.

Hollande said that France's contribution will not be limited to financial aid, saying that France will be in "the forests of Guinea, in the heart of the outbreak".

The World Health Organization said that 700 new cases of Ebola have emerged in West Africa in the last week alone, and they fear that the outbreak is accelerating.

There have been more than 5,300 cases in total since the epidemic began in early 2014, and half of these cases were reported in the last three weeks.

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