New Internationalist – September 2019

(C. Jardin) #1

CURRENTS


BORDERLINES


Not welcome

British companies, charities
and institutions have
expressed their deep
frustration at the UK visa
system, which consistently
blocks their invited guests
from conferences, festivals
and business meetings,
according to evidence given
at a recent parliamentary
inquiry.
Its findings have shone a
light on the prejudice within
the UK visa regime, under
which African visitors are
twice as likely to be refused a
visitor’s visa compared to any
other part of the world.
Their findings describe
how the system – which
is outsourced to private
company Teleperformance
UK – is geared to dissuasion.
In Africa, a total of 27 Visa
Application Centres serve
1.3 billion people across 57
countries. For some Mauritani-
ans, whose closest centre is in
Rabat, Morocco, just applying
for a visa means a round-jour-
ney of over 4,000 kilometres.
If applicants can travel
and afford the non-refund-
able fees, the evidence
shows they then run the
gauntlet of refusal on
‘arbitrary grounds’ due to
‘unaccountable, inconsistent
and unfair decision-making’.
It has become so difficult
to guarantee the attendance
of African colleagues
that some institutions are
boycotting the UK altogether.
The UNESCO refugee integra-
tion chair has said she will
no longer host any interna-
tional conferences in the UK,
describing its visa system as
‘inept’, ‘embarrassing’ and
‘discriminatory’, while the
London School of Economics
has started holding interna-
tional conferences in Belgium.
nin.tl/UKAfricaVisasReport

DEMOCRATIC


REPUBLIC OF CONGO


THE EPIDEMIC


CONTINUES


The girl’s father was weeping.
Four people wearing pale
yellow protection suits,
surgical masks on their faces,
lowered her coffin into the
earth. An elderly relative
wailed, crouching on the
ground. Police officers kept
guard in the shade nearby.
This burial – which took
place outside Beni, in the east
of the Democratic Republic
of Congo – was not ordinary.
The girl, named Nyetise, had
been diagnosed with Ebola,
and so her corpse had become


a mortal danger to anyone
who came near. She was laid
to rest in a cemetery for Ebola
victims, in a space carved out
of the forest half an hour’s ride
from town.
Beni is at the centre of the
Ebola epidemic that started
in July 2018 – the second-
largest in history after the
outbreak in West Africa in
2014-15 (see NI 493). It has
killed over 1,700 people and
shows no sign of slowing
down. On 17 July 2019, the
World Health Organization
declared a Public Health
Emergency of International
Concern (PHEIC), indicating
increased risk of the spread
of the virus to neighbouring
countries.
Soil was hurriedly
thrown over the coffin and
the workers hammered a
rough wooden cross into
the ground: ‘RIP Nyetise...
born: 05/04/2018’. Another
group of mourners squeezed
past to bury their own a few
metres away. The burial

team promptly packed their
hazard suits, disinfected
themselves, and rushed back
into their car. As they drove
away, one mourner sneered
at them in Swahili: ‘mbwa’
(‘dogs’).
Why the insult? Many
people I spoke to believed that
the epidemic has been caused,
or prolonged, by the powers
that be. So, anyone associated
with it is seen as a threat.
Several Ebola health workers
have been killed in violent
attacks by locals.
The rumours didn’t come
out of nowhere. The epidemic
provided the justification for
the Electoral Commission’s
decision to cancel voting
in the December 2018
presidential elections in the
Beni and Butembo regions,
both opposition strongholds.
Meanwhile, some politicians
distributed pamphlets
stating that the outbreak was
made up.
Offsetting these challenges,
an effective vaccine, V920, has

8 NEW INTERNATIONALIST


An Ebola victim is buried in
Butembo, May 2019. Health
workers are increasingly seen as a
threat by their compatriots.
JOHN WESSELS/AFP/GETTY

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