Thousands of people have fled an Ebola-hit displacement camp in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo after soldiers entered the site, raising fears that the deadly virus could spread further, UN and Congolese officials said on Thursday.
Security forces entered the Kigonze camp in Ituri province over the past week while searching for weapons, triggering clashes that forced residents to abandon the site, according to Congolese and health officials.
The camp, which had been home to around 19,000 displaced people, is now deserted, UN Senior Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis said.
Health officials said about 1,000 people who had been identified as contacts of Ebola patients were living at the camp before the unrest. One source said only around a fifth of them had since been traced.
“The enormous challenge of halting the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo just became even harder,” the United Nations said.
An Ebola transit centre at the camp, where suspected cases could be isolated, tested and treated, was also burned down during the unrest.
Kigonze had already been badly affected by the outbreak. More than 30 people died at the camp in just over a month earlier this year, many of them from Ebola.
The UN refugee agency said there have been 88 confirmed Ebola cases and 56 deaths across displacement sites in Congo, including Kigonze, warning that the true toll was likely higher.
Aid agencies have repeatedly warned that Ebola can spread rapidly in displacement camps, where overcrowding, limited access to clean water and poor sanitation make containing outbreaks more difficult.
The International Organization for Migration said the fatality rate among Ebola patients in other displacement camps was above 80%, compared with an average fatality rate of around 50%.
Eastern Congo has endured decades of conflict, leaving more than five million people displaced across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
Ituri is the province worst affected by the current Ebola outbreak, which was declared in May. The epidemic has already become the deadliest in Congo’s history, killing at least 3,982 people.
