Ebola burial teams in Sierra Leone dump bodies in street

Bodies of Ebola victims have been dumped outside a hospital in Sierra Leone by burial workers, who are protesting at the failure of authorities to pay them bonuses for their hazardous work, residents have said.

Tensions in the eastern town of Kenema reached new heights with the action by members of the burial teams. Local residents said three bodies were abandoned in the hospital doorway, preventing people from entering. There were reports that 15 bodies in total had been left in the street.

Health care workers have repeatedly gone on strike in Liberia and Sierra Leone over lack of pay, unfulfilled promises to pay them more and their dangerous working conditions. Two weeks ago, health workers walked out of the Ebola treatment centre in Bo, the only one in southern Sierra Leone, over the same issues.

A spokesman for the striking workers in Kenema, who asked not to be identified, said they had not been paid their weekly hazard allowance for seven weeks. Authorities accepted that the money had not been paid but said all the striking members of the Ebola burial team would be dismissed.

"Displaying corpses in a very, very inhumane manner is completely unacceptable," the spokesman for the National Ebola Response Centre, Sidi Yahya Tunis, said.

The head of the district Ebola response team, Abdul Wahab Wan, said the bodies had included those of two babies.