{"id":43717,"date":"2021-06-15T06:12:10","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T06:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/covid-19-close-to-20-caught-praying-in-forest\/"},"modified":"2021-06-15T06:13:50","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T06:13:50","slug":"covid-19-close-to-20-caught-praying-in-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/covid-19-close-to-20-caught-praying-in-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Close to 20 caught praying in forest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Police and local leaders found the group at about 9am, congregating in Ikadeshi forest located in Nyirabadugu Village, Gihembe Cell, Kageyo Sector.<\/p>\n<p>Worshippers belong to Catholic and Pentecostal churches and had come from Burera, Rulindo and Gicumbi districts.<\/p>\n<p>Felix Ndayambaje, the Mayor of Gicumbi District, who was part of the enforcement team, warned the believers against such prohibited practices.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Behaving in such a manner during this critical moment&#8230; no one should entertain it. It is disregarding and hampering government efforts to contain the virus and putting other people at high risks of catching and spreading the virus,&#8221; Ndayambaje said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Real christians prayer for good health&#8230; for good life but not putting people in danger,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>He advised them to go to churches which were allowed to resume rather than exposing their lives and those of others at risks.<\/p>\n<p>Gicumbi District Police Commander (DPC), Superintendent of Police (SP) Jean Bosco Minani said that the violators were arrested due to a tip off by concerned residents.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We were called in by residents who spotted a gathering in Ikadeshi forest. When Police and local leaders arrived there, we found 19 people praying and close to each other with no one wearing a face mask,&#8221; said SP Minani.<\/p>\n<p>He urged the public to adhere to the government directives to protect themselves from the deadly virus.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the second time in just two days that we have arrested people in these prohibited gatherings. Two days ago, we caught 30 people, now these 19; it is unfortunate that we can still observe people behaving like this,&#8221; the DPC said.<\/p>\n<p>He warned that Police will not tolerate such behaviors and practices and called upon the public to continue reporting such violations.<\/p>\n<p>The violators were taken to Byumba stadium where they were educated on health measures, government directives and handed administrative fines.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-38689 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/worshippers.jpg\" alt=\"Worshippers arrested holding a prayer gathering in the forest contrary to Government directives on preventing the spread of Covid-19.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Nineteen people were on Sunday, June 13, arrested in Kageyo Sector, Gicumbi District for holding a prayer gathering contrary to Government directives on preventing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-43717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43717"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=43717"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=43717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}