Ebola Has Killed 4,727 Congolese and Now Nurses Are Being Killed

Nearly 4,800 Congolese are dead. The Democratic Republic of Congo has recorded more than 9,760 Ebola cases since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, and the death toll now stands at some 4,727. This is the deadliest Ebola outbreak in the country's history. And in Bafwasende, a rural town in Tshopo province, a nurse who walked toward the sickness instead of away from it was killed by protesters. A health worker was beaten badly enough to be hospitalised. Ask yourself what kind of country reaches the point where the people sent to save the sick become targets.

Let us be clear about what this outbreak is. It is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, and there is no approved vaccine for it. That is not a small technicality. The vaccine that helped bring the 2018 to 2020 Ebola epidemic under control protects against the Zaire strain only. Bundibugyo has no shield, no proven treatment protocol that changes the odds at scale, and no emergency stockpile ready to deploy. Health workers are fighting a disease their science has not yet caught up with, with tools that cannot stop it on their own. Every contact traced, every isolation bed filled, every body safely buried is a small act of courage against a virus the world has been slow to take seriously.

The geography is the next outrage. The virus first appeared in the volatile east, and it has now reached eight provinces: Bas-Uélé, Haut-Uélé, Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Sud-Ubangi, Tshopo and Nord-Ubangi. North Kivu and South Kivu are precisely where the M23 armed group has been fighting Congolese forces since 2021, and where it seized Goma and Bukavu in early 2025. UN experts have repeatedly documented the presence of Rwandan Defence Force troops fighting alongside M23, in numbers that run into the thousands and, by some assessments, the tens of thousands across the wider operation. This is not a rebellion that happens to be near a disease. It is a war of aggression by Kigali, using a proxy force for cover, and it is being fought in the same hospitals, roads and markets where Ebola spreads. A health system under occupation cannot trace contacts when roads are closed, clinics sit in combat zones, and displaced families crowd into camps with no clean water. The Ebola response is being run in the shadow of Rwanda's guns, and the civilians paying for it are Congolese.

We have seen what happens when the state fails to earn trust. Across the Kivus and Ituri during earlier outbreaks, treatment centres were attacked and responders were chased off by communities who believed the sickness was a hoax, a plot, or a government trick. Some of that anger is rooted in genuine grievances: years of neglect, unpaid health workers, roads that do not exist, and officials who vanish when the crisis arrives and reappear when the cameras do. People who have been abandoned by their leaders for decades do not suddenly trust a stranger in a protective suit. None of that excuses the murder of a nurse. But if we refuse to name the decades of state failure that created the distrust, we will be back here next year, counting another set of graves.

Africa has proven, again and again, that this does not have to be the story. In 2014, Nigeria faced the Ebola threat when an infected Liberian-American diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, collapsed in Lagos. Nigerian epidemiologists, under pressure and in full public view, traced every contact they could find, isolated every case, and brought the outbreak to an end. The country was declared Ebola-free that October. Senegal did the same. Uganda has just declared its own smaller outbreak defeated. Those victories came from disciplined institutions, transparent reporting, and public health officers who were paid, protected and trusted. This is what competence looks like, and it can be replicated in Kinshasa, Bunia and Bukavu. The question is whether our leaders have the will to build it.

Here is what must happen now. First, the Congolese government must publish a full investigation into the Bafwasende killing, name the perpetrators, and prosecute them in open court. Impunity for those who attack health workers is an invitation to the next mob. Second, the Congolese state must pay its health workers on time, every time, through traceable mobile payment systems that leave a paper trail and cannot be looted by middlemen. A nurse who is owed three months of wages and is then attacked by a frightened crowd is not a symbol of national failure in isolation. She is the result of a system that has been stealing from its own people for generations. Third, local leaders, religious figures, and community health volunteers must be funded and empowered to explain what is happening, because Congolese people will listen to their own neighbours before they listen to a foreign agency with a logo on its vehicle.

The continent must also act with the urgency this crisis demands. The African Union and Africa CDC should press for accelerated development and trials of candidate vaccines and therapeutics for Bundibugyo, with guaranteed African manufacturing and distribution so that this continent is never again begging the Global North for the basic tools of survival. The African Union Peace and Security Council should demand an immediate ceasefire in eastern Congo to open humanitarian corridors for health teams, and it should name Rwanda's role in the fighting rather than tiptoeing around it. Rwanda's health system has earned international respect for its outbreak responses. That respect cannot be used as a shield for an army that occupies a neighbouring country and terrorises its civilians. Competence in one ministry does not excuse aggression in another.

And the United Nations Security Council, which has issued statements of concern about eastern Congo for years, must stop treating words as action. Sanctions against those who arm and direct M23 and its Rwandan backers must be enforced, not merely recommended. The Council should also make clear that obstructing health workers is a violation of international humanitarian law, because it is.

Finally, to the Congolese reader, and to every African who has ever been told that our problems are too complicated to solve: demand more. Demand that your MP explain where the health budget went. Demand that your provincial governor publish the payroll. Demand that the Security Council and the African Union answer for their silence. Share verified information, not rumours that get people killed. Support the nurses in your community when they show up at your door, and make sure the people who attack them face consequences. A continent that can contain Ebola can also hold its leaders accountable, if its citizens refuse to look away.

The nurse in Bafwasende was trying to save strangers from a disease that does not care about tribe, party or border. She paid with her life. Her family will bury her, and the world will issue another condolence statement. That is not enough. We owe her more than sympathy. We owe her a Congo where no nurse dies for doing her job, a state that keeps its promises, and an army that goes home.

Based on reporting by UN-NEWS