Attacks from suspicious residents complicate the fight against a rare
type of Ebola
[May 26, 2026]
By JUSTIN KABUMBA and OPE ADETAYO
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Every time Vanny Birungi, a volunteer with the Red
Cross in eastern Congo, goes out to raise awareness about the latest
Ebola outbreak as suspected cases near 1,000, she faces a double threat.
One is the rare Bundibugyo type of Ebola, with no vaccine or treatment.
The other is the anger and suspicion of residents who have pelted her
with stones and verbal abuse in Bunia, a city at the heart of the
outbreak.
“We continue to tell them that the disease is out there. Some accept,
and others don’t,” Birungi told The Associated Press on Monday as she
and colleagues spoke with groups of people in a working-class
neighborhood under the scorching sun.
Aid workers are especially at risk in this volatile region where
residents, like Birungi, have long been under threat of armed groups
that have killed thousands of people and displaced many more in recent
years.
Trust is hard to find among the traumatized population that is wary of
outsiders, even those trying desperately to contain the rapidly
spreading outbreak that experts say was discovered weeks late.
Surveillance for such diseases has been weakened by U.S. and other aid
cuts.
The World Health Organization says that a family of fruit bats is
believed to be the natural hosts of the viruses that cause Ebola. But
some people don’t believe the virus exists, or are skeptical about its
origins.
“These people should stop bothering us. They just want to get rich.
Let’s not forget that Ebola is a white man’s invention,” declared Pierre
Basola, a 56-year-old resident of Bunia, who added: “Stop talking to me
anyway.”
Cases are nearing 1,000 but health centers are burned
Three times in the past week, healthcare facilities have been attacked.
On Sunday, angry young men stormed a hospital treating Ebola patients,
forcing medical staff to evacuate them as gunfire rang out.
On Saturday, a group of residents set fire to a tent for suspected and
confirmed Ebola cases run by Doctors Without Borders in Mongbwalu, and
more than a dozen people suspected to have the virus fled. On Thursday,
a center in Rwampara was burned after relatives were barred from
retrieving the body of a man suspected to have Ebola.
Anger is amplified as virus prevention practices keep loved ones from
handling bodies in final rites following an illness some have described
as sudden and dramatic, with vomiting and bleeding.
The Ebola virus is spread through close contact with sick or deceased
patients’ bodily fluids, such as sweat, blood, feces or vomit. Experts
say healthcare workers and family members caring for patients face the
highest risk.
“Trust is almost as important as the health response, because if you get
this massive distrust in the communities, they’re not going to go to the
health centers,” said Heather Kerr, country director for the
International Rescue Committee in Congo.
Armed conflict in the region poses another challenge. To travel from
Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, to Mongbwalu, aid groups risk
potential attacks in a region more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles)
from Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.
Meanwhile, the outbreak now has more than 900 suspected cases and more
than 220 suspected deaths, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus said Monday.
“We are now playing catch-up with a very fast-moving epidemic,” he said.
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Vanny Birungi, a Red Cross volunteer, speaks to people during a
public sensitisation campaign amid the Ebola outbreak in Bunia,
Congo, Monday, May 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)
 ‘We leave everything to God’
Mado Nditamba, a 70-year-old Bunia resident, said that she has seen
students running away from aid workers.
“The last time Ebola came, it was not on the scale that we see
today,” Nditamba said. “But this epidemic today is worse. We go to
the doctors in the hospitals, but they also die. That’s what worries
us. We don’t know what to do and we leave everything to God.”
Congo has had 17 Ebola outbreaks, and WHO says the country is
equipped to respond. But early tests in this outbreak were conducted
for a more common type of Ebola, losing valuable time. Experts are
still trying to determine when this outbreak began.
There are few places to test for this Bundibugyo type in a region
where clinics can run on generators, and a major airport serving as
a humanitarian hub has been in the hands of rebels for more than a
year.
Health workers on the ground have told the AP that they are
underprepared and underprotected. An unknown number of responders
have been infected, and some have died.
A Congolese doctor was reported dead on Sunday in Rwampara, Rubens
Dhedgia, coordinator of the Ebola response in the region, told the
AP. In neighboring Uganda, where a far smaller number of cases has
begun to spread after Congolese traveled there, at least three
health workers have been infected.
And perhaps most worryingly, the International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies says three volunteers died in
Mongbwalu, after it believes they handled bodies on March 27 during
work unrelated to Ebola.
If confirmed, that would significantly push back the timeline of the
outbreak from the first confirmed death in late April in Bunia.
Some residents still believe Ebola is a myth
Even as at least one funeral home manager dusted off coffins for
sale alongside a road in Bunia, experts reported a lack of trust
among some residents of the region who don't believe the virus
exists.
Action Aid, another of the international humanitarian groups
responding, said that a high level of skepticism and lack of
understanding remains, citing residents it questioned in mid-May in
Ituri province just after the outbreak was announced.
"The only way to go, as far as this particular virus is concerned,
is community engagement,” said Yakubu Mohammed Saani, country
director for Action Aid in Congo.
How that will be improved, and quickly, is still not clear.
Meanwhile, both WHO and Africa Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention believe the outbreak is larger than the cases reported so
far.
___
Ope Adetayo reported from Abuja, Nigeria. Jean-Yves Kamale
contributed to this report from Kinshasa.
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