At the end, I appended some reader comments from the original site as I think they reflect very well what is currently on people’s mind. Sometimes comments reveal more than the article itself.
RT
October 23, 2014
Reuters / Max Rossi
A Guinean woman has been attacked in a bus in Rome by angry passengers who told her she was infected by Ebola and had to get off the bus, Italian media reports. She was taken to hospital suffering from multiple bruises.
‘I am a Liberian, not a virus’ campaign fights Ebola stigma plaguing West Africans
Fataomata Sompare, 26, was about to get off the bus on Monday, said Il Messaggero, an Italian newspaper, as cited by the Local.
A teenage girl who was on the bus with her friends saw Sompare and began accusing her of having the deadly virus. Then some of the teen’s relatives started beating the woman.
“They told me that I had Ebola and that I had to get off the bus,” said Sompare, who has been living in Italy for four years.
People at a bus stop near Grotte Celoni Metro station in the east of the city managed to save the woman, who suffered multiple bruises after being beaten by passengers. The police arrived and she was taken to hospital.
Ebola hysteria soars to new heights in US schools
The incident was reported to public prosecutors by Sompare’s lawyer.
“[She is] a victim of racism, which is now rampant in this city,” the Sompare’s partner Alessandro Corbelli told Il Messaggero. He added that the incident was “shameful” and she had been attacked “only because she’s black.”
The incident is not the only example of Ebola hysteria in recent days. In the US, Ebola-phobic parents sent a Maine teacher on mandatory leave after he returned from Dallas, where first victim of the virus in the country died. In Mississippi, parents pulled their kids out of school because of the principal’s trip to Zambia.
The death toll from the Ebola virus has reached 4,877 people for far, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.
According to the UN health body, 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries worst-affected by the virus, have contracted the disease.
Addendum by Tales
Some of the comments:
Robert Smiley:
“I was on a very crowded bus in Rome two weeks ago. It was so densely filled that the driver could never hope to take tickets, so many of the riders travelled free. It was during rush hour and I noticed a group of 5 or 6 black males in a group standing not far from me. The first thing that comes to your mind in such a situation is, “have these guys been to West Africa recently”?…”
Lubov Mudrost:
“What probably is happening now in Italy is: Italy is fed up with African migrants. Thousands and thousands keep coming. Their children go to school to find out that the local Italians are now the minority and their country being overrun by immigrants. So the anger has been building up for quite some time, and one little spark can produce an explosion. That’s what happened with the black lady above,she was a victim of anti-immigration minded children. I am against violence, for the record.”
Enrique Ferro:
“This hysteria is the result of the senseless campaign originated in the White House and relayed by our insane media.”
AnOnymOus00:
“This is exactly what the New World Order wants. They are inundating Western nations with immigrants from less fortunate countries so that the people will become divided and the elitests who are robbing the people and who are the ones truly wreaking havoc, have a scapegoat. They cannot succeed if the people do not give in like they did here, behaving so badly. The New World Order cannot happen without your participation which is why they use such manipuative tactics.”
Justice for Africa:
“The USA/EU enemies have crossed too many red lines in Africa in my lifetime. One thing i know for sure, there will be consequences for their actions past and present in our lifetime. The enemy must know that we are collecting data on their key assets in Africa and will take them out, starting with their languages. and organized chaos we can cause that too in a bid to achieve our goals, so they must not think we are chickens.”
You get the idea what after all it amounts to. Ebola is just another trigger for people who are frustrated with the political situation which in each case results in growing hatred against ‘the other race’. The same happens in case of ISIS who only cherish the hatred between Muslims and Non-Muslims. The world becomes more devided by blind ignorance again. Triggered emotions outweigh our rational thinking, and I wonder, is it happening on purpose? It seems to me that – let’s put it this way – ‘it’s not a coincidence’ that such an ‘extended’ Ebola outbreak, as well as ISIS, happen just now. Maybe we should ask those who profit from fear and chaos.
