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The Australia Foreign Minister
has slammed discrimination against nationals of Ebola-hit West African
countries while chairing the UN Security Council. Her statement has prompted
accusations of hypocrisy as Australia has imposed travel bans on these states.
“The Security Council
expresses its continued concern about the detrimental effect of the isolation
of the affected countries as a result of trade and travel restrictions imposed
on and to the affected countries,” said Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who read a
statement from the UN Security Council in New York.
Australia assumed the
rotating presidency of the Security Council for November 2014 and Bishop became
the first Aussie FM to preside at the meeting.
Bishop added that UN also
expresses its concern over the “acts of discrimination against the nationals
of Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone, including Ebola survivors and their
families or those infected with the disease.”
The Security Council
called on its member states, as well as airlines and shipping companies, “to
maintain trade and transport links with the most affected countries” while
applying appropriate public health protocols, she said.
“The Security Council
reiterates its grave concern about the unprecedented extent of the Ebola
outbreak in Africa, which constitutes a threat to international peace and
security.”
Bishop’s statement on
Ebola, however, was criticized by the Australian Labor party, which pointed out
that Aussie PM Tony Abbott's government had imposed bans on visa for Ebola-hit
countries.
“The hypocrisy of this government knows no
bounds,”
Labour party member Matt Thistlethwaite told Sky News. “They say one thing
in New York and do the complete opposite here in Australia.”
In October, Australia
became the first country to temporarily close its borders to people traveling
from West African states battling against the Ebola epidemic, immigration
Minister Scott Morrison announced to the country’s parliament. The move came
despite the fact the Ebola-free country has not sent aid workers to any
afflicted regions.
Morrison added that all
non-permanent or temporary visa requests from residents of Ebola-afflicted
nations, who had not already departed for Australia, would be canceled or
refused.
On Friday, the World
Health Organization (WHO) said that the Ebola death toll had reached 5,459 out
of 15,351 cases by November 18. The WHO records 39 more deaths and 106 new
cases since Wednesday.
Also there have been 13,240
confirmed, suspected, or probable cases in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea,
the hardest-hit countries, WHO said earlier in November.
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