Chaos erupted at a hospital at the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak after a mob set fire to isolation tents following a dispute over the handling of a suspected victim’s body.
The unrest broke out at Rwampara General Hospital near the city of Bunia in Ituri province — the epicentre of the outbreak — after relatives and friends of a young man believed to have died from the virus were barred from taking his body for traditional burial.
“They started throwing projectiles at the hospital. They even set fire to tents that were being used as isolation wards,” local politician Luc Malembe Malembe told the BBC, describing the scenes he personally witnessed.
Police fired warning shots to bring the situation under control, while medical workers at the facility were placed under military protection. A healthcare worker sustained injuries from stone-throwing before law enforcement intervened, according to AFP.
The deceased was described as a popular figure in the local community. Witnesses told Reuters he was a footballer who had turned out for several local clubs. His mother maintained he had succumbed to typhoid fever, not Ebola.
Jean Claude Mukendi, coordinating the security response to Ebola in Ituri, told the Associated Press that those angered by the young man’s death had failed to grasp the nature of the disease.
Malembe said a significant portion of the local population simply did not believe the virus existed.
“People are not properly informed or sensitised about what is happening. For a certain segment of the population, especially in remote areas, Ebola is an invention by outsiders — it does not exist,” he said, adding: “They believe it is the NGOs and hospitals creating this to make money, and this is tragic.”
Two tents were destroyed in the fire, along with a body that had been awaiting burial. Six patients who had been receiving treatment in those tents were initially reported to have fled during the mayhem, but medical charity Alima, which operated the facility, later confirmed all patients were accounted for and receiving care at the hospital.
Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner described the situation as deeply alarming, while acknowledging that community resistance to unfamiliar health narratives was understandable.
“I think it is normal and it would be normal in any setting that all sorts of reactions are triggered, including challenging or questioning narratives that they might not feel comfortable with,” she told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
She added that authorities were intensifying engagement in affected communities to ensure residents felt safe, understood, and heard.
The World Health Organization, which has classified the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, recommends trained burial teams using full protective equipment to handle the bodies of Ebola victims — a protocol that conflicts directly with local burial customs.
As of Wednesday, the WHO recorded 139 deaths among approximately 600 suspected cases, though Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba put the death toll higher at 159. The outbreak has been caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which no approved vaccine currently exists. The WHO has indicated a jab could take up to nine months to develop.
The crisis has since spread beyond Ituri. The M23 rebel group, which controls parts of eastern DR Congo, confirmed the first case in South Kivu province — hundreds of kilometres from the original epicentre — involving a 28-year-old who had travelled from Kisangani and died before a diagnosis was confirmed.
Separately, neighbouring Uganda has detected two cases and responded by temporarily suspending cross-border flights, buses, and passenger ferry services on the Semliki River.
The unrest also cast a shadow over Congolese football, with the national team cancelling a pre-World Cup training camp in Kinshasa due to the outbreak.