(Posted 13th June 2026)
The reported spread of the current Ebola outbreak in Eastern Congo into a major refugee camp is a stark reminder that containment measures in the war torn part of Congo DR is almost impossible to achieve due to the ongoing war between government troops and rebels – said to be backed by a neighbouring country of Congo
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR confirmed the first Ebola-related deaths in a displacement camp in eastern Congo, as aid workers warned of a high risk the disease ?could spread rapidly in overcrowded sites.
The two victims were internally displaced people living in the Kpangba camp, which ?hosts 30,000 internally displaced people, the UNHCR said in a report published on Thursday.
The virus has now spread across three provinces since the World Health ?Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17th.
The affected provinces – Ituri, South Kivu and North Kivu – have been devastated by decades of conflict and are home to more than 5 million displaced people.
A Congolese health ministry report showed that a 60-year-old woman in the camp tested positive for Ebola on May 30th. By then, she had ?broken out of quarantine and could not ?be traced by teams, the report said.
She died on May 31st and her daughter died on June 01st, an aid worker with knowledge of the cases told Reuters, adding that their bodies ?had both tested positive for Ebola after their deaths.
Humanitarian workers later discovered the bodies, but community members began pelting WHO vehicles as they tried to approach, the source said.
Mistrust of aid groups has been widespread in the nearly month-long outbreak in Congo, with communities sometimes ?burying highly-contagious ?bodies in secret to avoid health protocols.
“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,” Caitlin Brady, country director for the Danish Refugee Council in Congo, told Reuters.
The Congolese health report for the Kpangba camp listed eight contacts for the mother, underscoring the risk of further cases within the camp. The International Organization for ?Migration, which provides support there, said it was concerned about further transmission.
“It’s ?a highly populated area so the risks of transmission are obviously higher ?and worrying,” the aid source said. “These are tents with ?tarp walls, where do you isolate if you have symptoms?”
At another camp in Ituri province, Kigonze, ?the chief Desire Grodya Bapi said people had been ?falling ill and dying but ?he was not aware of any confirmed Ebola cases.
As of this Friday, Congo had reported 676 confirmed cases and 136 deaths – with hundreds more cases suspected across the area – in an outbreak that has also spread to neighbouring Uganda, which has reported 19 cases, the initial ones ‘imported’ from Congo DR leading to subsequent cases in the population.
