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   From: uy@libscum.com   
      
   MONROVIA, Liberia -- Hundreds of residents of a seaside slum in   
   Liberia's capital clashed with security forces Wednesday to   
   protest an armed blockade of the peninsula that is their   
   neighborhood as part of the government's desperate efforts to   
   stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.   
      
   Protests began in the morning when roads into and out of West   
   Point were blocked by riot police and troops and a coast guard   
   boat patrolled the waters offshore.   
      
   When the local government representative, who had not slept at   
   home, returned to get her family out, hundreds of people   
   surrounded her house until police and soldiers packed her and   
   her family into a car and hustled them away. Security forces   
   fired into the air to disperse the crowd, and residents threw   
   stones or whatever was at hand at them. At least one person was   
   injured.   
      
   Deputy Police Chief Abraham Kromah said later Wednesday that   
   forces managed to restore order in the area. He said the police   
   were investigating whether any shots had been fired.   
      
   Fear and tension have been building in Monrovia for days, and   
   West Point has been one of the flash points. West Point   
   residents raided an Ebola screening center over the weekend,   
   accusing officials of bringing sick people from all over   
   Monrovia into their neighborhood. The move to seal off the   
   densely populated, impoverished peninsula shows that the   
   government is struggling to contain a deadly outbreak that is   
   spreading faster in Liberia than anywhere else.   
      
   President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered West Point sealed off   
   and imposed a nationwide curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.   
      
   "We have been unable to control the spread" of Ebola, Sirleaf   
   said in an address to the nation Tuesday night. She blamed the   
   rising case toll on denial, defiance of authorities and cultural   
   burial practices, in which bodies are handled. But many feel the   
   government has not done enough to protect them from the spread   
   of Ebola.   
      
   The Ebola outbreak, which according to the World Health   
   Organization began in December, has killed at least 1,229 people   
   in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.   
      
   On Wednesday, riot police and soldiers created roadblocks out of   
   piles of scrap wood and barbed wire to prevent anyone from   
   entering or leaving West Point, which occupies a half-mile-long   
   (kilometer-long) peninsula where the Mesurado River meets the   
   Atlantic Ocean.   
      
   Few roads go into the area and a major road runs along the base   
   of the point, serving as a barrier between the neighborhood and   
   the rest of Monrovia. Ferries to the area have been halted.   
      
   At least 50,000 people live in West Point, one of the poorest   
   and most densely populated neighborhoods of the capital.   
   Sanitation is poor even in the best of times and defecation in   
   the streets and beaches is a major problem. Mistrust of   
   authorities is rampant in this poorly served area, where many   
   people live without electricity or access to clean water.   
      
   The community is in "disarray" following the arrival of forces   
   on Wednesday morning, West Point resident, Richard Kieh, told   
   The Associated Press by phone.   
      
   "Prices of things have been doubled here," he said.   
      
   The Ebola outbreak has already touched other parts of the   
   capital, where dead bodies have lain in the streets for hours,   
   sometimes days, even though residents asked that they be picked   
   up by Health Ministry workers.   
      
   Liberia has the highest death toll, and its number of cases is   
   rising the fastest. Sirleaf also ordered gathering places like   
   movie theaters and night clubs shut and cordoned off Dolo Town,   
   30 miles (50 kilometers) south of the capital.   
      
   While whole counties and districts in Sierra Leone and Liberia   
   have been sealed off and internal travel restrictions have   
   limited the movement of people in Guinea, the sealing off of   
   West Point is the first time such restrictions have been put in   
   place in a capital city in this outbreak.   
      
   The current Ebola outbreak is currently the most severe in   
   Liberia and Sierra Leone, but the U.N. health agency said that   
   there were encouraging signs that the tide was beginning to turn   
   in Guinea. There is also hope that Nigeria has managed to   
   contain the disease to about a dozen cases.   
      
   Nigeria's health minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, said Tuesday that a   
   fifth person had died of the disease in that country. All of   
   Nigeria's reported cases so far have been people who had direct   
   contact with a Liberian-American man who was already infected   
   when he arrived in the country on an airliner.   
      
   ------   
      
   Associated Press photographer Abbas Dulleh in Monrovia, Liberia,   
   and writer Maram Mazen in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this   
   report.   
      
   http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_26372317/liberian-   
   police-seal-slum-contain-ebola-sparking-clashes   
      
       
      
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