Paper details

Paper authors	Melanie Sauter
In panel on	Trust in Humanitarian Action
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

2019 has been the most violent year on record for health workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Attacks on healthcare coincided with the first-ever Ebola outbreak in an active conflict zone. Many attacks against the Ebola response were perpetrated by `normal' civilians, and aimed at disrupting the response, which in turn contributed to the spread of the virus. Why would communities attack the very people who are trying to protect them from a disease?
This mixed-method study examines the case of violence against Ebola responders during the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 10th Ebola outbreak from 2018-2020. In the first part, an `explaining-outcome' process tracing reconstructs key events leading to the violent popular resistance. I find that – contrary to popular belief – distrust alone was not the main driver of violence against Ebola responders. Rather, I argue that distrust is part of a mechanism initiated by the centralization of the Ebola response that explains some isolated attacks. Inconsistent healthcare measures, most prominently the political exclusion of only some parts of the Ebola-affected areas, politicized the Ebola response and provoked large-scale violent popular resistance.
The second part tests the correlation of cause and outcome of the novel mechanism in an interrupted time-series model. The exclusion of three regions from voting in the presidential election due to Ebola sparked a significant increase in attacks against Ebola responders.

Back