NAIROBI, Kenya — Tensions have escalated in East Africa after Kenyan civil society groups accused national authorities of deliberately flouting a court order to activate an American-supported Ebola quarantine facility, following confirmed reports that U.S. personnel evacuated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo are already isolated in the country. The controversy comes amid an ongoing deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC that has already claimed more than 900 lives, reigniting fierce debate over public health risk and rule of law in Kenya. The two-month-old outbreak in DRC has recorded 2,344 confirmed infections to date, with a death toll climbing to at least 930, according to official data. To manage risk for U.S. citizens responding to the crisis, Washington backed a plan to quarantine evacuated American workers in Kenya, a stable U.S. ally hundreds of miles east of DRC with no confirmed Ebola cases of its own to date. U.S. humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, which runs two Ebola treatment centers in the DRC towns of Bunia and Nyankunde, confirmed over the weekend that seven of its American staff, deployed to the outbreak front lines, are currently serving a 21-day quarantine period in large military tents in Kenya. The group emphasized none of the personnel have developed any Ebola symptoms so far. While the organization declined to disclose the exact location of the quarantine site, local Kenyan media has identified Laikipia Air Base, a military installation located roughly 115 miles north of the capital Nairobi, near the town of Nanyuki, as the intended site for the U.S.-backed facility. Local residents in Nanyuki have already held multiple demonstrations against the planned quarantine center, and two civilians have lost their lives in clashes that broke out when protests turned violent. As of Monday, neither Kenya’s Ministry of Health nor the U.S. State Department had responded to repeated requests for comment on the reports of quarantined Americans. Officials at Laikipia Air Base also could not be reached for a statement. The U.S. government has committed $13.5 million to support Kenya’s national Ebola preparedness programming, and Kenyan President William Ruto has publicly defended the planned quarantine facility as a core component of the bilateral public health partnership between the two nations. Ruto added that U.S. funding will also support the construction of 24 additional regional Ebola preparedness centers across Kenya. But the project hit a legal block last month, when Kenya’s high court issued a formal order barring the facility from being opened or operationalized. Kenyan Health Minister Aden Duale subsequently issued a formal order suspending all construction work on the site. The court order stemmed from a legal petition filed by two Kenyan civic groups — the Law Society of Kenya and constitutional advocacy organization Katiba Institute. The petitioners argued that hosting a quarantine for at-risk Americans evacuated from the DRC outbreak posed an unacceptable threat to Kenya, noting that the country’s already overstretched public health system could be completely overwhelmed if a local outbreak were to occur. Following the emergence of reports that Americans are already being quarantined in violation of the court order, leaders of the civic groups are demanding accountability. Nora Mbagathi, chief executive of the Katiba Institute, told the Associated Press that the activist community is deeply alarmed by the new reports. “Should any Kenyan government official be involved in this ongoing operation, they have completely betrayed the public trust and must be held personally accountable,” Mbagathi said. In its own official statement to the AP on Monday, the Law Society of Kenya called any deliberate violation of the court order a clear act of “impunity and lawlessness.” In his statement on the quarantine, Samaritan’s Purse President and CEO Franklin Graham confirmed additional details of the operation: the quarantined staff are housed in large military tents within a secured fenced gravel compound, sleep on military cots, and receive all meals from the U.S. military. Graham has not responded to repeated questions asking why the quarantine is active in Kenya despite the formal court order halting the project.
Ebola quarantine center for Americans is up and working in Kenya despite a court ban, activists say
