A report from Beni, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shaken by violence and Ebola. Marco Gualazzini’s photographs paint a distressing scenario – in which children are most at risk.
“Ebola exists, wash your hands and protect yourself. Ebola exists, wash your hands and protect yourself”. A loudspeaker, its message ghostly and repetitive, blares its warning on a loop, alerting people of the need for preventive measures and the risks of contagion. All around there are soldiers, police officers and medical personnel making dozens of people take their temperature and wash their hands with a chlorine water solution. We’re at a checkpoint at the entrance of the city of Beni, the epicentre of the Ebola epidemic that has been ravaging the north-eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo – where the virus has caused over 2,000 deaths and infected over 3,000 people – since August 2018. At the entrance point to the infection’s hotbed, we’re given access to a city besieged by the world’s most lethal disease only after passing medical checks and adopting all the compulsory precautionary measures .
Once the metal bar is raised, allowing us to enter the “heart” of the Ebola epidemic, we immediately feel the nightmarish pall and psychosis brought by an invisible enemy that causes infection and death every day. The road that leads to the centre of Beni is dotted with signs explaining how the virus is transmitted. After a few minutes we encounter a funeral procession: a wagon, once used to transport coal, now carries a coffin to one of the many cemeteries that have sprung up spontaneously on the outskirts of town. Petrified people look on from the sides of the street with expressions of fatalism and fear. The virus is an atavistic evil in the face of which everyone feels exposed, vulnerable and defenceless.
Ebola exists. A day at the heart of the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Diritti — di Daniele Bellocchio
A report from Beni, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shaken by violence and Ebola. Marco Gualazzini’s photographs paint a distressing scenario – in which children are most at risk.
