Liberia’s Military Tries to Remedy Tension Over Ebola Quarantine

The chief of staff for the Armed Forces of Liberia, Brig. Gen. Daniel D. Ziankahn Jr., hung up his navy blue suit, put on a bright yellow jersey and shorts, then bounded toward a sandy field.

Nine months earlier, his soldiers fired live rounds into the seaside slum of West Point and beat residents after rioting broke out on the first day of a government quarantine of the neighborhood during the Ebola epidemic.

But now, rather than manning a barricade, his troops were playing a soccer match intended to help repair the rift between the security forces and the residents of West Point.