Sparks: Number of suspected Ebola cases in DR Congo passes 900 as health workers face attacks and shortages

My fear of the fever is matched only by my fear of the men who attack those who would treat it, a contradiction I cannot resolve without first examining my own comfort.

This fever burns the body as violence burns the spirit, a twin affliction requiring salves for both flesh and community to restore the divine order.

The world creates a monster of suffering and then recoils in horror when that suffering lashes out at the hands meant to mend it.

Why do men willingly serve the very sickness that devours them, attacking the few who offer the means of their own liberation?

Winning independence from a colonial power was simple compared to the revolution required to liberate a people from their own self-destructive fears.

A man lights a candle to see in the dark, then uses it to set the lighthouse on fire.

The iron house is not sealed by outsiders but by those inside, who would rather perish together than allow a single window to be opened.

Nine hundred cases, countless attacks, persistent shortages - these are not isolated incidents but data points in a pattern of systemic abandonment.

You cannot chart a path to health if the safe houses are burning and the conductors are driven off at gunpoint.