BUNIA: Thirty people have died since the start of May in one camp for displaced civilians in northeastern Congo, a death rate that camp officials said was unprecedented, with some confirmed to have died from Ebola in a sign the disease could be spreading fast there.

It was not possible to confirm the causes of all the deaths because patients or their relatives in Kigonze camp in Bunia, the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, had until Thursday refused testing, aid organisation Caritas said.

However, all had symptoms including headaches, fever and vomiting, which are associated with Ebola, a camp spokesperson added.

Circulating undetected?

“People didn’t just die like this before,” camp spokesperson Desire Grodya bemoaned. The deaths in Kigonze, which has more than 15,000 residents, raise fears that Ebola may be circulating undetected among eastern Congo’s over five million displaced people, with resistance to testing compounding the challenge posed by severely limited sanitation measures.

Funding cuts by US and other donors leave people more exposed to diseases

Camp chief Dz’djo Ndrutsi Etienne said 10 people were buried this week alone. The camp typically recorded between one and three deaths per month.

Justin Zanamuzi, director of Catholic aid organisation Caritas, which helps Kigonze’s residents, said his team saw several bodies covered in sheets, including a pregnant woman and children.

Footage from Thursday shared by the civil society leader showed health teams in hazmat suits disinfecting more bodies and preparing tiny coffins next to a crucifix as mourners wailed.

Our team tried to persuade people to accept doctors to inspect the bodies. They completely refused, Zanamuzi said.

The outbreak in the country was first declared by Congolese officials on May 15, but the officials said the deaths had begun earlier in the month.

Grodya, the camp spokesperson, said health workers had taken samples from five victims, some of which had come back positive for Ebola. Three aid sources also confirmed that the test samples on some of this week’s victims had come back positive for Ebola.

Camp resident Kato Lonu, 47, lost two children, including a six-month-old. “These are conditions that no human being should have to live in. If you look around, people are dying one after another,” he said.

Four aid workers said the spike in deaths highlighted how communities were now more exposed to diseases such as Ebola as donors, including key contributor the US under President Donald Trump, have cut funding for water, hygiene and sanitation,.

Data compiled by the UN showed that funding for toilets and handwashing stations in Dr Congo more than halved between 2024 and 2025, to around $38 million, and this year’s $80m appeal is only 21 per cent funded.

Congo has hundreds of camps for civilians fleeing war, some home to 100,000 people. Ebola deaths have already been recorded in another camp in the same province of Ituri, which has over 90pc of nearly 900 confirmed cases.

In Kigonze, large families share the same plastic tents spaced less than a metre apart and children wander its dirt alleyways barefoot.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2026