Ebola in Congo

Ebola in Congo is a 2019 short documentary film directed and filmed by Ben C. Solomon. The film takes place in the African country of Congo during the traumatic events of Ebola. The film is told by multiple narrators including Jophet, Dr. Marie as well as Bosco.

The documentary starts with Jophet, who had witnessed the tragedy of his family starting with his son, John. The latter fell sick and the doctors told his father that he was poisoned. Days later, he passed away. In the same day, Jophet's wife and mother begun to show symptoms as well. Unfortunately, they also ended up being dead.

Eastern Congo has been devastated by more than 25 years of war while Ebola has killed more than two thousand people. Therefore, the documentary is the story of health workers who risk their lives to fight ebola in a war zone.

The second witness named Bosco. He descends from the same community where ebola is killing people on a daily basis. He volunteers as a medical technician to secure burials. Apart from the Red Cross, Bosco sew most of the time as he has seven children. According to Bosco, volunteering is about helping the community. If the disease contaminates other children, it will get to his home too. He is in danger every day. Bosco feels pity to see children die in front of his eyes. However, he decides not to give up for the sake of his community and of course his children.

Marie is a medical doctor from Haiti. She chooses medicine to take care of people. Nevertheless, for her, this is the first time that there will be ebola in a war zone. The biggest problem is that she is in a community that does neither believe in Ebola nor trust outsiders. Marie is ready to fight Ebola but she cannot resist the trauma of the community because of war. She does not understand how people are cruel toward them while they are doing their best to save them from a deadly disease. Despite all that, Marie believes that if she has to die there, she has to die someday.

Two weeks later, Marie sees that the situation is much secure now to raise the awareness of the villagers to the danger of Ebola. Maries states the people that can prove it best, that Ebola exists is a survivor. Since Jophet is a survivor of Ebola, he decided to devote his life as a nurse to look after suspected Ebola patients. He is there to help children whose parents are already sick. When the parents come out of the Ebola treatment center, the children want to stay with him because he considers them as his lost child.

As time goes by, people started to see the change. They trust the vaccinations now. The community want to see Ebola vanish. According to Bosco, if the community understand the situation by taking their precautions and securing the dead corpses, ebola will certainly disappear. On the contrary, as long as people remain stubborn, the epidemic will never end.

Three months later and as the documentary comes to the end. Dr. Marie sends videos and voice messages from Eastern Congo because she was locked down. During the night, an armed group entered the compound of the Ebola response. They group caused too much violence killing three responders and injured others. Dr. Maries and her fellows were forced to evacuate. The documentary ends with such a pessimistic chaos.