CROSS BORDER TRADES CONTINUE DESPITE BAN AS TRADERS PLACE COUNTRY AT RISK OF EBOLA SPREAD

By Onzoma Albert

Arua City

Traders at the Odramacaku border market in Arua City are disregarding Ministry of Health directives and security measures to cross into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for business.

Despite mandated border shutdowns aimed at containing a recent Ebola outbreak, unauthorized crossings persist.

The Ministry of Health suspended weekly markets in high-risk border sub-counties along Uganda borders with the DRC to prevent virus spreadbut this has continued to b defied.

Esau Juruni, local council chairman of Nunu Cell where Odramacaku is located, criticized the poor enforcement of border market closures.

He noted that cross-border trade continues actively at Odramacaku and other entry points, with traders and travelers using informal routes to bypass security personnel.

“The authority’s decision to shut down the market is right but my question to them is that, will those traders who cross to Congo for business not bring for us the disease here? Now what is the meaning of shutting down the market in Uganda and letting the one in Congo side operate normally? When you observe around the border, there is nothing like the border market has been closed” he said.

For thousands of Ugandans, especially women, cross-border commerce is their primary income source, and traders face severe financial losses if their perishable goods remain unsold on the Ugandan side.

Livestock trader Belino Ezangu, expressed disappointment over the absence of handwashing facilities and screening at the border, urging the city health team to enhance Ebola prevention measures.

“Governments good plans of curbing the spread of the disease is now turning to be a failure along the border with Congo here because if you carry out observations, along the border, there is nothing like screening and no handwashing facilities. If possible, proper options to curb the disease should be in place to safe guard us from the outbreak of Ebola” he said.

By defying containment rules, traders risk accelerating the transmission of the Bundibugyo Ebola strain across the porous border.

Uganda’s National Task Force on Ebola Response had ordered the immediate shutdown of crossings with the DRC, including high-risk markets and non-essential crossings in Arua, following an imported outbreak of the Bundibugyo Ebola strain from eastern DRC, which caused confirmed cases and fatalities in Uganda.

Rt. Maj Betty Akello Otekat, the Resident City Commissioner of Arua and Ebola task-force chairperson, acknowledged widespread cross-border movement and urged the public to remain vigilant as the city’s Ebola task force seeks ways to curb the rampant crossings.

“You must maintain maximum alertness level because of the high cross-border human trafficking. Looking at how things are happening across the border, Congolese will think that there is no Ebola and yet they are dying every day. My people, let us not take this disease for granted and Ebola doesn’t know boundaries,” she appealed.

Despite official closer of Ugandan border operations, many traders, informal vendors, and transporters from Arua continue crossing into the DRC to trade in busy border hubs like Ariwara and Aru.