Ebola workers dump corpses on the street over unpaid bonuses

In protest of their unpaid allowances and bonuses, burial workers in Sierra Leone are dumping bodies in the streets.

PHOTO: AFP via Aljazeera

Aljazeera quotes residents as saying that up to 15 corpses were abandoned in the eastern town of Kenema, three of them at a hospital entrance in order to stop people from entering. According to the head of the district Ebola Response Team, Abdul Wahab Wan, the bodies included those of two babies.

According to the news network,

A spokesman for the striking workers, who asked not to be identified, said they had not been paid their weekly hazard allowance for seven weeks.

Authorities acknowledged the money had not been paid but said that all the striking members of the Ebola Burial Team would be dismissed.

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

He added that the central government had paid the money to the district health management team.

“Somebody somewhere needs to be investigated (to find out) where these monies have been going,” he told Reuters news agency.

Two weeks ago, workers walked off the job at a clinic in Bo in Sierra Leone, deepening the crisis in a country that has been worst hit among the West African countries affected.