Police in Liberia have fired live rounds and tear gas to disperse a stone-throwing crowd trying to break an Ebola quarantine imposed on their neighbourhood, as the death toll from the epidemic in West Africa hits 1,350.
In the West Point neighbourhood of capital Monrovia at least four people were injured in clashes with security forces, witnesses said.
It was unclear whether anyone was wounded by gunfire, though a Reuters photographer saw a young boy with his leg largely severed just above the ankle.
“The soldiers are using live rounds,” army spokesman Dessaline Allison said.
“The soldiers applied the rules of engagement. They did not fire on peaceful citizens.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said countries hit by the outbreak of the deadly virus were beginning to suffer shortages of fuel, food and basic supplies after shipping companies and airlines suspended services to the region.
The epidemic of the hemorrhagic fever, which can kill up to 90 per cent of those it infects, is ravaging the three small West African states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and also has a toehold in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.
Liberia, where the death toll is rising fastest, said its health ministry warehouse had run out of rubber boots and hand sanitiser bottles, essential for preventing the spread of the disease.
Since it was discovered in remote south-eastern Guinea in March, the overall death toll from the outbreak has reached 1,350 from a total of 2,473 cases.
Liberian authorities introduced a nationwide curfew on Tuesday and put the teeming West Point neighbourhood under quarantine to curb the spread of the disease.
Witnesses said clashes started after security forces blocked roads early on Wednesday with tables, chairs and barbed wire.
Security forces came in to escort the local commissioner out of the neighbourhood, they said.
Attempts to isolate the worst affected areas of the country and neighbouring Sierra Leone have raised fears of unrest in one of the world’s poorest regions should communities start to run low on food and medical supplies.
“I don’t have any food and we’re scared,” Alpha Barry said, a resident of West Point who said he came from Guinea and had four children under 13.
The World Food Programme has begun emergency food deliveries to quarantined zones where 1 million people may be at risk of shortages.
The WHO has appealed to companies and international organisations to continue providing supplies and services to countries at risk, saying there was a low risk of contagion.
Reuters