Ebola kills, but not by decapitation. We are losing loved ones.
In the forests and villages surrounding Beni, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, two crises have become one: an Ebola outbreak claiming dozens of lives meets an armed insurgency that has terrorized the region for over a decade. When ADF militia fighters swept through communities in late May and early June of 2026, killing more than thirty civilians and sending hundreds fleeing into the bush, three confirmed Ebola patients abandoned their treatment centers — carrying with them the possibility of wider contagion. It is a reminder that disease does not spread in a vacuum, and that the conditions which allow epidemics to flourish are often the same conditions that allow violence to endure.
- ADF militia fighters massacred over thirty civilians near Beni in a matter of days, using beheadings and mass killings to terrorize communities already living under military administration since 2021.
- Three confirmed Ebola patients fled treatment centers in the chaos, and hundreds of displaced civilians moving through the bush represent exactly the kind of uncontrolled human movement that accelerates viral transmission.
- With 344 confirmed Ebola cases across three provinces and sixty deaths already recorded, public health workers now face the near-impossible task of building community trust while armed insurgents hunt the same communities they are trying to protect.
- Healthcare workers are refusing to enter violence-prone zones, and survivors like civil society activist Albert Lusenge — who has lost twenty family members to ADF attacks — warn that traumatized populations cannot be expected to comply with containment protocols while being massacred.
- The current crisis echoes the 2018–2020 Ebola epidemic that killed nearly 2,300 people, with researchers warning that ongoing insecurity risks repeating that catastrophic failure of containment.
In the early hours of a Wednesday morning, armed fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces descended on three villages near Beni, in North Kivu province, setting homes ablaze and killing at least ten people in the initial raids. The assault was part of a surge of violence that claimed more than thirty lives across the region in recent days. Beni sits at the epicenter of an active Ebola outbreak — sixty deaths among 344 confirmed cases spread across three provinces — and the timing could hardly have been worse.
A resident of the Ngandi neighborhood described the scene: families preparing for bed when screams erupted, people fleeing into darkness, neighbors found dead by morning with their heads severed. Hundreds ran into the surrounding bush. Among those displaced were three confirmed Ebola patients who abandoned their treatment centers following an earlier attack on the city itself, in which more than twenty civilians were killed and dozens went missing.
The ADF, a militia with ties to Islamic State, has killed an estimated ten thousand civilians in the Beni region since 2014. Civil society activist Albert Lusenge, who has lost twenty family members to the group, captured the region's impossible dilemma plainly: "Ebola kills, but not by decapitation." Researchers suggest the civilian massacres are strategic — a brutal deterrent against government and Ugandan military operations — carried out by small, mobile units in forested terrain that have resisted elimination for decades.
The convergence of insurgency and epidemic creates a cascade of failures. Healthcare workers will not enter areas where violence is routine. Communities lose faith in disease response when they see no equivalent mobilization against armed groups killing their neighbors. Displaced people cannot maintain the isolation measures necessary to stop Ebola's spread, and if infected individuals are among them, the virus travels with them. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stated plainly that building community trust and isolating patients is impossible "while bombs are falling."
The DRC has been here before. The 2018–2020 Ebola epidemic claimed nearly 2,300 lives, with mistrust of health authorities — rooted in violence and instability — hampering containment throughout. Researchers warn the current violence risks reawakening the failures of that earlier crisis. The Kinshasa government insists fighting the ADF is an absolute priority, but the militia's decentralized structure and forested geography have so far made them nearly impossible to defeat, while two separate catastrophes continue to feed each other.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, armed fighters descended on three villages near Beni, a city in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. They set homes ablaze, killed at least ten people in those initial raids, and kidnapped others whose numbers remain unknown. The attackers were members of the Allied Democratic Forces, a militia with ties to Islamic State, and their assault was only the latest in a surge of violence that has claimed more than thirty lives in recent days across the region.
Beni sits at the epicenter of an active Ebola outbreak. As of Wednesday, the virus had claimed sixty lives among 344 confirmed cases spread across three provinces. The timing of the militia attacks could hardly be worse. A resident of the Ngandi neighborhood in Beni, Mumbere Sivya, described the chaos: families were preparing for bed when screams erupted. People fled into the darkness to save themselves. By morning, neighbors lay dead, their heads severed. The violence sent hundreds running from their homes into the surrounding bush, a mass displacement that immediately threatened to accelerate disease transmission across communities.
The military governor of North Kivu confirmed that three patients with confirmed Ebola infections abandoned their treatment centers in the aftermath of Saturday's attack on the city itself. That assault had been particularly brutal. Witnesses reported that more than twenty civilians were killed and dozens went missing as the militia moved through Beni, which has been under military administration since 2021. The beheadings and shootings created panic that sent people fleeing in all directions—exactly the kind of uncontrolled movement that allows a virus to spread from one community to another.
The ADF has been escalating its campaign against civilians and government forces in the Beni region for years. Civil society organizations estimate the group has killed roughly ten thousand civilians since 2014. Albert Lusenge, a civil society activist in Beni, has lost twenty family members to ADF attacks. He articulated the impossible position facing the region: "Ebola kills, but not by decapitation. We are losing loved ones as a result of the ADF's atrocities." The question haunting public health officials is how to convince a traumatized population to trust Ebola response teams and comply with containment measures when they are simultaneously being hunted and massacred by armed insurgents.
Researchers studying the ADF's tactics suggest the civilian massacres serve a strategic purpose. Reagan Miviri, a researcher at Ebuteli, a Congolese think tank, explained that the killings appear designed as a military deterrent—a brutal response to government and Ugandan army operations against the group. The ADF operates in small, mobile units across forested terrain, making them difficult to locate even during aerial operations. When military pressure increases, civilians pay the price. The group has proven nearly impossible to eliminate: large-scale government campaigns between 2005 and 2014 failed to root out the militia, and joint Congolese-Ugandan operations that began in 2021 continue to this day, with civilians caught in the middle.
The convergence of active insurgency and active epidemic creates a cascade of failures. Healthcare workers will not venture into areas where violence is routine. Communities lose faith in disease response when they see no equivalent mobilization against armed groups killing their neighbors. Lusenge warned that people fleeing violence during the attacks cannot maintain the isolation and containment measures necessary to stop Ebola's spread. If infected individuals are among those displaced into the bush, the virus moves with them. The World Health Organization's director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently underscored the impossibility of the task: isolating patients and building community trust are impossible "while bombs are falling."
This is not the first time insecurity has sabotaged Ebola response in the DRC. Between 2018 and 2020, the previous epidemic claimed nearly twenty-three hundred lives, and mistrust of health authorities—rooted partly in violence and instability—hampered containment efforts throughout. Miviri warned that the current violence risks "reawakening the demons" of that earlier failure. The Kinshasa government has stated that fighting the ADF remains an absolute priority, but the militia's decentralized structure and the forested geography they inhabit have so far made them nearly impossible to defeat. Meanwhile, the virus spreads, patients flee clinics, and the region descends deeper into a crisis where two separate catastrophes feed each other.
Citas Notables
As we were getting ready for bed, we heard people screaming for help. It was an attack carried out by the ADF. We fled our homes in a panic to save our lives.— Mumbere Sivya, resident of Ngandi neighborhood, Beni
The killings of civilians serve as a military deterrent. Every time these terrorists are attacked deep within their territory, they respond by massacring civilians.— Reagan Miviri, researcher at Ebuteli think tank
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why would Ebola patients flee treatment centers? Wouldn't they know the virus is more dangerous than the militia?
Fear doesn't work that way. When you hear screams and see homes burning and neighbors being killed, your survival instinct overrides everything else. You run. You don't think about epidemiology—you think about staying alive tonight.
So the ADF is deliberately targeting Ebola clinics?
Not necessarily. They're attacking the region broadly. But the clinics happen to be in the same communities where the violence is occurring. The effect is the same: patients disappear, containment breaks down, and the virus moves with displaced populations.
The article mentions the ADF has killed about ten thousand civilians since 2014. Why hasn't the military defeated them?
They operate in small groups across dense forest. They're not a conventional army you can surround and destroy. When military pressure increases, they scatter and then retaliate against civilians—which actually strengthens their position because it terrifies the population into not cooperating with authorities.
Is there a way out of this?
Not a quick one. You'd need simultaneous security and health response—military operations that actually work, plus healthcare workers willing to operate in dangerous areas. But right now, each crisis makes the other worse. Violence undermines trust in health authorities. Lack of security makes health work impossible.
What happened in the 2018-2020 outbreak?
Nearly twenty-three hundred deaths, partly because communities didn't trust the response teams. There was violence then too, though not at this scale. The fear now is that history repeats—that people will refuse to cooperate with Ebola response because they've seen what happens when armed groups decide to kill civilians in the same areas.