‘Soldiers did not fire Ebola protesters’

Brownie Samukai said a large crowd, mostly youths, attacked the soldiers who were sent to rescue the female commissioner of the area, Aisha Flowers, who had been held hostage.He said the soldiers fired in the air to disperse the protesters. Samukai said three persons were wounded, not by gunfire, but when they tried to cross […]

Brownie Samukai said a large crowd, mostly youths, attacked the soldiers who were sent to rescue the female commissioner of the area, Aisha Flowers, who had been held hostage.
He said the soldiers fired in the air to disperse the protesters. Samukai said three persons were wounded, not by gunfire, but when they tried to cross over a barb wire security barricade.
“This morning, a group of unruly residents came and began to attack the police and military personnel, throwing rocks, sticks, anything they could put their hands on. And, they went to attack the residence of the district commissioner. It was within the context of that that shots were fired in the air, I repeat, in the air to disperse the crowds,” he said.
Patricks, national director of Liberia Campaigners for Change, a human rights organization, said the soldiers used live fire on the protesters.
“I’m telling you live bullets were used.  A 15 year-old boy by the name of Sylvester Kromah was shot in the leg by the Liberian army, the AFL (Armed Forces of Liberia).  When he went to rescue one of his family members, who also received a bullet in the process, his leg was shot by the AFL soldiers,” Patricks said. Samukai said the government has no intention to increase the hardship of the people, and that the curfew and state of emergency are intended to minimize human-to-human contact, thereby breaking the chain of transmission of the Ebola virus.
Patricks said the Ebola quarantine, the curfew and the state of emergency have deprived the people of West Point, who he describes as mostly as “hustlers,” of their livelihood.