A hunger strike has been launched in Guinea in protest against the military’s presence in a village where an Ebola awareness team was killed in September.

About 20 leaders from the southern Wome village are camping outside parliament since launching the strike. The “military occupation” of Wome had forced some 6,000 people to flee their homes, an opposition leader said. The government and military have not commented on the allegations.

In September, the government accused villagers of murdering eight people raising awareness about Ebola.

Some of the bodies – of health workers, local officials and journalists – were found in a septic tank in Wome some 50km (30 miles) from the south-eastern city of Nzerekore.

The motive for the attack was not clear, but it came at a time when many communities either denied the existence of Ebola or accused health workers of spreading the virus.