Kenya has ordered a halt to preparations for a controversial US-run Ebola quarantine facility, the health minister told a court Tuesday, after being held in contempt for ignoring a previous stop-work order. The project has prompted widespread anger, and several people were killed during protests earlier this month.
Issued on: 23/06/2026 - 15:41
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Kenyans have strongly opposed the plan and deadly protests have taken place since the facility was announced in May for potential US citizens evacuated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is grappling with a major Ebola outbreak. The centre, at Laikipia Air Base, near the town of Nanyuki, is about 200 kilometres from the capital Nairobi. It is largely completed, with some 50 isolation beds to be manned by US medical staff. The Katiba Institute rights group petitioned the high court in May, saying the facility was being developed secretly and without consultation and warned that the arrangement posed "grave and imminent risks" to public health. But Kenya's government ignored a court order to pause work on the site. US Ebola facility in Kenya fuels anger in a country with no cases On Monday, the court said health minister Aden Duale was held in contempt for failing to respond to the order. Appearing in court on Tuesday, he expressed regret and was pardoned. "I have directed the immediate and complete cessation of any intended construction, site preparation, or related activities concerning the Laikipia Air Base facility pending the hearing and determination of the substantive petition or until further orders of this court," he told the court. However, he defended the plan, saying the fear of Ebola spreading outside the military base was "scientifically unfounded", and that it could have also been used for Kenyan soldiers serving in the DRC. The scale of the unrest had come as a shock to the Kenyan and US governments, with three people killed in two separate days of unrest in Laikipia this month.
