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Groton Daily Independent
Friday, May 17, 2018 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 3088 ~ 40 of 55
U.S. soldier who was missing, Army Sgt. La David Johnson. The bodies of the others who were killed had been recovered, but Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Florida, could not be found.
About two days later, Nigerien military forces located Johnson’s body, in the heavy brush under a thorny tree, where he had hidden and fought in his final stand against the enemy. The video shows the Nigeriens carefully carrying his body to the back of a waiting truck, and later transferring him to a helicopter.
Also killed in the ambush were: Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Washington; Staff Sgt. Jer- emiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio, and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Georgia. Two American soldiers and eight Nigerien forces were wounded.
The investigation of the incident by U.S. Africa Command found there were a number of failures as- sociated with the mission, but none directly caused the enemy ambush. It also described multiple acts of heroism, as the members of the outmanned and outgunned Army Special Forces team struggled to protect and rescue each other.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has directed the Army and U.S. Special Operations Command to conduct reviews, which could result in awards of valor or disciplinary actions.
Navy Capt. Jason Salata, spokesman for Special Operations Command, said Mattis requested a review “of the training and policies pertinent to Special Forces soldiers that may impact their ability to effectively train foreign partners.”
He said the review, which began immediately, will look at counterterrorism operations, personnel policies that affect units preparing to deploy and any administrative requirements that are relevant.
‘Major, major game-changer’: Ebola spreads to big Congo city By SALEH MWANAMILONGO and CARLEY PETESCH, Associated Press
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread to a crossroads city of more than 1 million people in a troubling turn that marks the first time the vast, impoverished country has encountered the lethal virus in an urban area.
“This is a major, major game-changer in the outbreak,” Dr. Peter Salama, the World Health Organization’s deputy director-general of emergency preparedness and response, warned on Thursday.
A single case of Ebola was confirmed in Mbandaka, a densely populated provincial capital on the Congo River, Congo’s Health Minister Oly Ilunga said late Wednesday. The city is about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Bikoro, the rural area where the outbreak was announced last week.
Late Thursday, Congo’s Ministry of Health announced 11 new confirmed Ebola cases and two deaths tied to cases in the country’s northwest, including one in a suburb of Mbandaka.
A total of 45 cases of Ebola have now been reported in Congo in this outbreak: 14 confirmed, 21 prob- able and 10 suspected, the ministry said, after results from lab tests returned Thursday.
There has been one new death in Bikoro, where the first death took place. That new death had epidemio- logical ties to another case. The other death was a suspected case in Wangata, a suburb of Mbandaka on the Congo River, the ministry said. No details were given on the death’s links to the newly confirmed case.
Only one of the 25 dead has been confirmed as Ebola, it said, adding that no new health professionals have been contaminated. One nurse had died, and three others were among suspected cases since the outbreak began.
Medical teams have been rushing to track down anyone thought to have had contact with infected people, while WHO is shipping thousands of doses of an experimental vaccine.
Until now, the outbreak was confined to remote rural areas, where Ebola, which is spread by bodily fluids, travels more slowly.
“We’re certainly not trying to cause any panic in the national or international community,” Salama said. But “urban Ebola can result in an exponential increase in cases in a way that rural Ebola struggles to do.” Mbandaka, a city of almost 1.2 million, is in a busy travel corridor in Congo’s northwest Equateur prov- ince and is upstream from the capital, Kinshasa, a city of about 10 million. It is an hour’s plane ride from
Kinshasa or a four- to seven-day trip by river barge.