Butembo
Trading city in DR Congo's North Kivu Province.
Butembo sat at the centre of North Kivu's Ebola surge by 2 October 2026, MSF said, with its treatment centres short of beds and five of its health facilities burned since late July.
Last refreshed: 4 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Butembo
Became the outbreak's main source of new cases
Pandemics and Biosecurity: Ebola shifts south to DR Congo's ButemboMentioned in: G20 talks take Ebola pledges to US$3bn
Pandemics and BiosecurityUDPS official beaten to death in Butembo
Pandemics and BiosecurityMentioned in: WHO: 2,000 Congolese workers get Ervebo
Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
Butembo is a trading city in North Kivu, in eastern DR Congo, and a commercial hub on the region's trade routes. It has a long record of resisting Ebola responses. When Ebola was cited to cancel voting in Butembo, and in Beni next door, at the December 2018 presidential election, many in the city took the decision as political. On 19 April 2019 gunmen killed Richard Mouzoko, a Cameroonian WHO epidemiologist, at the city's university hospital during a meeting on the response. Arsonists had burned MSF's treatment centres in Butembo and Katwa that February, and the two areas were the slowest to clear.
The pattern returned in 2026. Congo Quotidien reported that five health facilities in the city burned between 26 July and 1 September, set off by rumours about unconfirmed cases and suspicion that officials collude with response Teams. On 27 September Marie-Célestin Karondwa, a local leader of the governing UDPS WHO had spoken about Ebola prevention on local radio, was attacked at his home and died. WHO attacked him is unknown, and armed groups operate around Butembo and Beni, where killings are frequent.