Liberia opens new national cemetery for Ebola victims


Liberia has opened a new national cemetery to provide safe burial sites for victims of the Ebola outbreak.

The 50-acre site in Monrovia, half of which is ready for use, will enable dignified burials instead of cremations.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says the number of people infected by Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has now passed twenty thousand.

The virus has killed more than seven thousand people since it broke out a year ago.

The WHO said more than a third of the twenty thousand and eighty-one cases in the West African states were in Sierra Leone, which has become the worst-hit country.

The situation in Liberia has improved in recent months, but health officials have warned that dozens of new cases have emerged near the country's border with Sierra Leone.

The Memorial Liberian Assistant Health Minister, Tolbert Nyenswah said the new cases, are due to the movement of people across the border and the traditional practice of washing victims' bodies.


BBC