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Ebola:…travellers stranded at Calabar beach as Cameroun closes border with Nigeria


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There were strong indications that  the Government of the Republic of Cameroun has shut its sea border against Nigeria to guard against possible spread  of dreaded  Ebola virus
Indications to this emerged at the weekend when ships carrying passengers and goods heading for the neighbouring country from Calabar were turned back at high sea by combined team of Camerounian security operatives including the immigration and gendarmes.
A highly dependable immigration source told DAILY SUN that for over four days now, traders and travellers from Nigeria may have been tacitly barred from entering Cameroun as result of alleged outbreak of the dreaded Ebola disease.
The source said though no official statement to that effect, but that virtually every ship that took off from the Inland Water Ways Beach, the Afikpo Beach and other notable take off points within the Marina axis could not be allowed beyond the shores of Nigeria territorial waters.
He said when officials of Inland Water Ways and the Maritime Authority sought to know why, their Camerounian counterpart told them that the order is from above.
Checks revealed that an average of eight ships load from the Inland Water Ways Beach and various points daily in  Calabar. Out of this number, it was learnt, 3 big ships, which loaded  from Inland port, carry over 100 passengers while 5 lighter ships, which load from other locations, with carry about 50 passengers.
When DAILY SUN visited Nigeria Inland Waterways yesterday morning in Calabar, hundreds of passengers and traders were seen milling around the place and looking stranded as they could not understand what becomes of the movement and their goods.
A few were seen in groups talking in muffled voices, apparently lamenting their predicament in the past four days.
In a chat with one of the Nigerian-Cameroun based businessmen, Austine Agha, he said at first when they were told they cant travel to Cameroun because of Ebola, he thought it was a joke but was shocked  to see ships that had already left for Cameroun being turned back.
Lamenting their ordeals, Agha said:  “As you can see, most of these passengers are now stranded because the Cameroun/Nigeria border has been sealed off for fear of Ebola.  Even the Camerounians, some of them are here, also stranded, no vessel is coming in, no vessel is going out.
“I don’t know what the Federal government is doing about it. We are using this medium to call on the Nigeria government to intervene in this matter, to alleviate the sufferings on the masses especially the Igbo trader.”

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