Recent reports of fresh Ebola outbreak in Gabon and the Democratic Republic of Congo have rekindled in me memories of how the population of Juba in my native Sudan reacted, about quarter of a century ago, to one of the world’s most contagious and dangerous pestilences.

Perhaps the title of the essay I wrote about the fear of Ebola 20 years later about the disease initially referred to by medics and the denizens of Juba as the Green Monkey Disease or Maridi Disease, partially recaptures the mood of the city and says all: "When Even the Bravest Trembled With Fear".

At the time of the outbreak, I was fresh graduate working on an English language weekly, Nile Mirror, which used to be produced in Juba.

The first victim of the dreadful disease characterised by very high fever and excessive bleeding was in Maridi where he died in a couple of days after falling ill. Several other patients caught the disease and died in the same dreadful manner.

The description of the symptoms and agony the victims went through before dying aggravated the fear of a society being fed with horror-like stories such as that the patients of the so-called Maridi disease had very high temperatures and bleeding through all body orifices, accompanied by excruciating pain.

Soon, the epidemic extended its fatal tentacles to Juba, the seat of the then autonomous Southern Sudan. One day, a patient suffering from the virus was rushed from Maridi to Juba for treatment at Juba Hospital. He died a day after while receiving treatment. The third class ward where he spent those painful hours turned out to be the source of the much feared and incurable ailment.

Inside the hospital, there was an all-pervasive panic and gloom; there were reports of some of the nurses who had asked to leave their jobs altogether. When a senior nurse was assigned to look after a new case, he broke into tears and sent for his wife and children to give them his farewell. Prophetically and sadly, he was right: two days afterwards, he was dead. Tragically, many of his relatives and friends failed to turn up for his burial. But a former senior nursing instructor who had assigned the deceased colleague to handle an Ebola patient, and a certain Dr Salama, assisted two of the dead nurse's kin carried the bier while almost everyone kept a discreet distance behind.

As can be expected, the city of Juba was out of bounds, cut off from the rest of the country; flights from and to Khartoum had been suspended indefinitely. Fear had gripped almost everyone, from humble office messengers to senior civil servants, MPs and ministers since there was no way of knowing who would be the next victim. Strange behaviour began to show. For example, a senior civil servant hurried erected a high fence around his Government house and restricted members of his household from frequent visits out of the residence. There were reports that at home and in the office he would refuse to shake hands if the visitor was his junior by age or in workplace hierarchy.

There was lighter side to this bleak environment. Urbano Oyet, a cartoonist working for the Nile Mirror, has immortalised the fear that took hold of the citizens. Based on a true story, the cartoon depicts children, adults, male and female, young and old running away from a Juba bus for dear life, leaving the driver and conductor and the man at the centre of panic, stunned. The statement that caused the pandemonium: "I have just arrived from Maridi".

It would be unfair to insinuate that the population of Juba city was a bunch of cowards who all feared death from Ebola. There was fear, but the majority of people believed the epidemic would kill a few unlucky persons and eventually disappear as suddenly as it had emerged while others took a more fatalistic attitude.

There were people of blood and flesh who braved the dangerous situation. Juba was quarantined at the time when an archbishop for the Episcopal Church of the Sudan was to be enthroned. The Archbishop of Canterbury the Rt Rev Ramsey, decided to visit the city for the occasion. On his trip to the stricken city, a female minister and medical doctor, Fatima Abdel Mahmoud, joined the primate in Khartoum. The consecration of the clergyman was an occasion to lift the spirit of many: the All Saints Cathedral in Juba was full to overflowing. The sermon never mentioned anything about the epidemic.

By coincidence, after the departure of the Archbishop of the Canterbury, no new cases were reported. Three weeks later, the quarantine was lifted. The much-feared Ebola had disappeared in the same manner it had crept into Southern Sudan.

• Mr Atem is a Sudanese journalist resident in Australia.