Liberia's President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was in Brussels this week to attend an international conference on the fight against Ebola. During her visit, she spoke to FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman about the progress made and also about the fight against the terrorist group Boko Haram.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the only
female African head of state, slammed Boko Haram’s "inhumane" use of
young girls as suicide bombers. “We have not forgotten” the Chibok
schoolgirls, she told Marc Perelman.
While welcoming the regional push to fight Boko Haram in and around
Nigeria, she said the terrorist threat underlined the need for an
African Union rapid response force.Asked about the Ebola epidemic, Sirleaf welcomed the fact that there have been no new Ebola cases for “well over a week” in Liberia. However, "we are not out of the woods because we know this virus can return", she warned.
Sirleaf insisted on the importance of a regional approach with the two other worst-affected countries, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Despite the drop in new cases, the economies of these three countries have been hit hard. Regarding the "Marshall Plan" she called for this week in Brussels alongside her counterparts from Sierra Leone and Guinea, Sirleaf believes that tens of billions of dollars will be necessary.
Finally, the Liberian president added that she was "very happy" with the international response to the epidemic, although it came late. "It took a while for everybody to realise that this was a global threat”.
Credit: FRANCE 24
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