Ebola fear empties DR Congo village schools

In the village of Mangina, where dozens have died of Ebola at the epicentre of Democratic Republic of Congo's latest outbreak, children are to be seen everywhere -- except in school, because their parents fear they will be infected in class.

“The children are not here today. It's the parents who are keeping them at home,” primary school teacher Christian Muhindo said as he paced between empty desks. “They think that the children will be easily contaminated at school.” “They don't know that teachers have been taught to cope,” Muhindo said. “UNICEF has trained us to protect the children and to take the right steps in the event of a sick child.” Teaching staff and aid workers fear that children who walk around freely in the village pose a risk far worse than they would pose in a monitored classroom.

Ebola has already claimed more than 60 lives in Mangina, a village of just a few thousand inhabitants. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has encouraged teachers to see that basins of chlorinated water are placed in schools. The viral haemorrhagic fever broke out in the Beni region of the eastern North Kivu province on August 1 in the middle of the school holidays.

In a nation where half the total population of some 78 million is aged under 18, almost seven million children do not go to school, UNICEF estimated in 2016.

-AFP-