Ebola deaths hit Congo displacement camp as outbreak spreads

Ebola’s arrival in Kpangba camp has turned a disease-control effort into a race against crowding, mobility and fear. The camp in eastern Congo shelters about 30,000 internally displaced people, and aid workers warned that the virus could move quickly through a population already uprooted by years of fighting.

The U.N. refugee agency confirmed the first Ebola-related deaths in the camp as the outbreak spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, three conflict-hit provinces that together shelter more than 5 million displaced people. In Kpangba, a 60-year-old woman tested positive on May 30 after she had broken quarantine and could not be traced by response teams, according to a Congolese health ministry document. She died on May 31, and her daughter died on June 1; both bodies later tested positive after death, an aid worker with knowledge of the case said.

The camp underscores the practical obstacles facing responders. Humanitarian workers described toilets shared by hundreds of people and open defecation common, conditions that make isolation and infection control far harder. Mistrust has deepened the challenge: aid groups said community members threw stones at World Health Organization vehicles when workers tried to approach, and families have sometimes buried highly contagious bodies in secret to avoid health protocols.

Caitlin Brady, the Danish Refugee Council’s country director in Congo, said, “We are all really worried that Ebola in these camps will spread extremely quickly and that there will be panic and people will flee all over whether or not they’re contacts, whether or not they’re ill.”

The outbreak was first flagged when WHO was alerted on May 5 to a high-mortality cluster of unknown illness in Mongbwalu Health Zone, Ituri Province. After laboratory testing of 13 blood samples on May 14 confirmed Bundibugyo virus in eight of them, Congo’s health ministry declared its 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15. WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17, as cases were also reported in Uganda.

By June 3, WHO said Congo had 344 confirmed cases and 60 deaths, with six recoveries in Congo and two in Uganda. WHO said the follow-up rate for contacts was about 45 percent, far below the more than 90 percent needed to stay ahead of transmission. Three Ebola treatment centres were operating in Bunia with 80 beds, and treatment units had been established in five other regional cities.

The outbreak has hit a country that had barely recovered from its previous crisis, which ended in December 2025. It is the 17th recorded Ebola outbreak in Congo since the virus was first identified in 1976, and this one involves the Bundibugyo strain, for which WHO says there is no licensed vaccine or specific treatment. UNHCR has appealed for $14.08 million from June to November 2026 to support preparedness and response in Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan.