Four Ebola responders killed in troubled eastern DR Congo

Four Ebola workers in eastern DR Congo were killed and six injured, adding to the toll of people who have died fighting the nearly 16-month-old epidemic, the UN said Thursday.

A member of the vaccination team and two drivers were killed at an Ebola workers' accommodation camp in Biakato Mines in Ituri province, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The attack occurred two kilometres (one mile) from a temporary base used by UN peacekeepers, one of whom was injured in an operation to repel the assailants, the UN said.

A second attack claimed the life of a police guard at an Ebola coordination office in Mangina, a few dozen kilometres (miles) away in North Kivu province. "We are heartbroken that people have died in the line of duty as they worked to save others," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

"The world has lost brave professionals," he said, quoted in a WHO statement issued in Geneva. Michael Ryan, WHO director of emergency operations, said that after the attack all staff were moved from Biakato Mines to Goma, one of the main cities in the region.

There was no immediate claim for the attacks, which DR Congo's national coordinator for Ebola, Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, said occurred "almost simultaneously, around midnight."

Ryan said that he knew of "no specific intelligence regarding an imminent attack" at Biakato Mines. None of the dead were WHO staff but a worker with the UN agency was injured, Ryan said.

An outbreak of the much-feared haemorrhagic virus has killed 2,199 in North and South Kivu and Ituri provinces since August 1, 2018, according to the latest official figures.

It is the Democratic Republic of Congo's 10th Ebola epidemic and the second deadliest on record after an outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014-16, claiming more than 11,300 lives.

Mangina is the historic starting point of the epidemic. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the town on September 1. Insecurity has complicated the epidemic from the outset, compounding resistance within communities to preventive measures, care facilities and safe burials.