Kenya Has No Ebola. But Trump’s Planned Quarantine Facility Has Already Claimed Its First Life
- Kang-Chun Cheng 鄭康君
- 2 hours ago
- 5 min read
A Dispatch from Our Editor-at-Large
Based in Nairobi, Kenya, Kang-Chun Cheng covers how environmental change impacts one's sense of belonging, foreign aid, and outdoor adventure. She has reported for us from some of the most inaccessible locations on Earth, including war-torn Ukraine and South Sudan (pictured).
When her teenage son did not return home on the night of June 9th, Lucy Kagure assumed he had stayed the night with his grandmother.
She had told 17-year-old Sylvester Muigai Ndung’u to stay away from the town centre of Nanyuki, a gateway town to Mount Kenya with a thriving tourism economy, where protests had engulfed the streets against a proposed Ebola quarantine facility. Protesters clashed with the police, leaving five people — including two police officers — injured and 31 protesters arrested.
The tensions came after an Ebola outbreak in Ituri, a province in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, which the World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern.” Ten days later, news that a quarantine facility would be built in Nanyuki for Americans exposed to the virus in Africa sparked criticism across Kenya, with many questioning why it was being built over 700 miles from the outbreak’s epicenter.
“We’re still under a colonial system,” said John Maigua, an activist with the Defenders Coalition in Nanyuki. "Imagine building an Ebola facility in a country where there are no cases.”
By the following morning, Sylvester’s continued absence left his mother anxious. When she began searching for him, officers at the local police station dismissed her, telling her that she “wasn't a good mother.” She went from one hospital to another before making a final stop at the morgue.
There, she found Sylvester’s body wrapped in a shroud, waiting to be identified.
Sylvester had been shot dead at the protest, with evidence of police brutality that the local police denied. An autopsy ordered by the Independent Police Oversight Authority and the Independent Medico-Legal Unit found that a bullet entered above his left eye and lodged in the back of his brain.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, vomiting, bleeding, and severe dehydration, and it has an average fatality rate of about 50%.
The 50-bed Ebola quarantine facility, allegedly designed to “maximize patient outcomes” and expected to be manned by American medical staff, was being set up through a “coordinated effort” between the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Pentagon.
The U.S. promised a $13.5 million commitment toward Kenya’s Ebola preparedness. There is currently no information on whether the money will go towards preparedness measures or the quarantine facility.
Kenyans did not respond to the facility positively. The High Court of Kenya held Health Minister Aden Bare Duale in contempt for ignoring multiple orders issued in late May and early June to block construction plans for the quarantine facility. The Katiba Institute, a Kenyan human rights group, argued that the lack of public consultation rendered this facility illegal.
Yet, at first, construction pressed ahead. Kenyan President William Ruto stated that it would be “very inhuman” for Kenya to reject a US-funded health facility after years of receiving American aid.
“It shows that our president doesn’t respect the Constitution,” Maigua said. “There was no public participation on this matter. Our government did not even announce news about this facility to us. We found this out from social media.”
In 2015, the U.S. and Kenya signed a biosecurity agreement which created a legal foundation for cooperation on biosecurity threats and outbreak response. However, the agreement also granted the U.S. certain privileges regarding health interventions in Kenya, including tax exemptions for American workers. The agreement was renewed in 2022.
“No one wants to go on holiday near an Ebola [quarantine] facility. No tourism means joblessness and insecurity, and then people have to find other ways to make a living." — a Nairobi-based researcher.
Opaqueness behind such projects fuels public apprehension and distrust toward the government, Maigua said. “There’s no information, nothing. We don’t know how they are disposing of waste — what if a stray dog carries something with Ebola contamination to the community?”
On June 23rd, Duale appeared before the court, saying that the government had halted construction of the facility. Yet, many remain concerned about the future and goals of the quarantine facility.
“We’re told this will be staffed by Americans and will be for Americans, but the government is telling us that after Ebola is finished, it will help bolster the Kenyan medical system,” said a researcher based in Nairobi, whose name is withheld due to security concerns. “What are we supposed to think?”
The dearth of accurate information from the Kenyan government has also led to speculative misinformation filling the gaps.
“There’s talk that the [American] Ebola facility is built to facilitate the smuggling of critical minerals from DRC to Kenya,” Maigua said. “There aren’t any people on the ground in Ituri to share what is happening — maybe there isn’t even any Ebola.” [I interjected, citing the work of journalists who have reported from the ground, affirming that Ebola cases are real.]
The controversy over the quarantine facility triggered protests, legal challenges, and, ultimately, the untimely death of Kagure’s son.
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The local Catholic Church helped Kagure with Sylvester’s burial costs. “When my son was killed, no one [from the government] pretended to send condolences; there was no representative at his funeral,” Kagure recounted. “Not even during burial preparations, because they are afraid to be viewed as anti-government.”
Lawyer Derrick Maingi, a human rights activist and founder of Sheria Mashinani, a community-based legal training organization, said that families such as Sylvester’s should not be given token payments.
“They are entitled to full, dignified, and meaningful reparations where investigations establish that the death or injury resulted from unlawful state action, police excesses, or failure by the State to protect life,” Maingi said.
According to Maingi, someone such as Kagure would have a constitutional claim against the State. Yet, Kenya currently lacks such a compensation scheme. A special ad hoc committee has been drafting a new piece of legislation since last summer, after at least 38 people were killed during the July 7 protests, held to commemorate the historic Saba Saba pro-democracy movement.
To Maingi, Uganda, a neighboring East African country, serves as a regional example through its Human Rights (Enforcement) Act. “[The Act] gives courts a clearer framework to enforce human rights remedies and even contemplates personal accountability by public officers who violate rights. Kenya should go further and create a victim-centered framework that is transparent, prompt, and enforceable.”
Kagure had encouraged her son to pursue a career in the Catholic Church to gain future economic stability. “He was a good boy,” she said, speaking from the one-room mabati (corrugated) shack where she and her three remaining children live. A stray chicken clucks from the top bunk of a bed. “He was an altar boy and wanted to become a priest. He made me so proud.”
Kagure continues to hope for justice after her son’s death. “The American government, especially the president, is also to blame for Sylvester’s death. If it weren’t for their idea, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Why is America coming to Kenya, just because [President William] Ruto is given money by the U.S. government?” she continued. “Why can’t the facility be in America?”
(Mwangi Ndirangu contributed to this reporting from Nanyuki)
