South Kivu

South Kivu is a province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo bordering Rwanda to the east and Burundi to the south. It has been largely controlled by the M23 rebel movement since February 2025, following a sustained military advance backed, according to UN experts, by Rwanda. The provincial capital Bukavu remains contested, but M23 administration has displaced DRC state authority across large rural areas. When the first confirmed Bundibugyo Ebola case outside Ituri Province emerged in South Kivu on 21 May 2026, the patient died before diagnosis; residents torched a treatment facility on the responders' arrival.

The province's biosecurity vulnerability derives directly from the conflict. DRC health teams and WHO cannot enforce isolation norms, contact tracing, or SAFE-burial protocols without M23 cooperation, which has not been guaranteed. South Kivu's eastern border with Rwanda adds a regional transmission risk; cross-border trade and population movement through unofficial crossings are difficult to monitor. The India-Africa summit was postponed when South Kivu's status shifted the outbreak's geographic profile from a contained Ituri emergency to a cross-provincial event in conflict-governed territory.

South Kivu is also mineral-rich (coltan, cassiterite, and gold), and its conflict dynamics are inseparable from resource competition. The province has endured successive waves of armed group activity since the 1990s. The current M23 presence represents the most significant loss of state authority in the region since the Second Congo War.