Sierra Leone's vice president has asked for asylum in the United States after his expulsion from the ruling party.
Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana has gone into hiding while he seeks asylum at the U.S. embassy in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, according to BBC News. Sam-Sumana and his wife fled their home Saturday after he received word that soldiers were surrounding it. Police and army sources said their troops were dispatched to remove the vice president's security detail, but they refused to say whose orders they were following.
Sam-Sumana placed himself in the 21-day quarantine two weeks ago after one of his bodyguard's died of Ebola. The soldiers went to Sam-Sumana's house to secure and "strengthen" the quarantine, Information Minister Alpha Kanu said.
After Sam-Sumana found out the soldiers were coming, he tried and failed to contact President Ernest Bai Koroma, Al Jazeera America reported. He reached the top officials for the presidential guard, who told him that his security detail was being disarmed. He then called the U.S. embassy to seek asylum.
"I don't feel safe this morning as vice president," Sam-Sumana told the Associated Press by phone.
The U.S. embassy, including U.S. ambassador John Hoover, had received the news that the vice president sought asylum, but they have not taken any action, said U.S. embassy spokeswoman Hollyn Green, according to BBC News.
President Koroma's All People's Congress (APC) expelled the vice president from its party after an investigation said he was attempting to create his own political movement, Al Jazeera America reported. The investigation also said the vice president harbored a group of thugs and was trying to create political violence in his home district Kono in the Eastern Province.
