South Kivu
DRC province bordering Rwanda, under M23 control since 2025; first Bundibugyo case outside Ituri.
South Kivu, under M23 rebel control since February 2025, recorded its first officially confirmed Bundibugyo Ebola case by 27 July as the outbreak spread to 48 of DR Congo's 140 health zones across five provinces.
Last refreshed: 31 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Can WHO reach Ebola contacts in South Kivu while M23 controls the territory?
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Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
South Kivu is a province in eastern DR Congo bordering Rwanda to the east and Burundi to the south, with its capital at Bukavu. It is mineral-rich in coltan, cassiterite and gold, and its conflict dynamics have long been inseparable from competition over those resources.
The province has been largely controlled by the M23 rebel movement since February 2025, following a military advance that UN experts say Rwanda backed. Bukavu remains contested, but M23 administration has displaced DRC state authority across large rural areas, the most significant loss of state authority in the region since the Second Congo War.
That absence of state health authority is the province's central biosecurity vulnerability: DRC health teams and WHO cannot enforce isolation, contact tracing or SAFE-burial protocols without M23 cooperation, which has not been guaranteed, and the province's porous eastern border with Rwanda adds a further, difficult-to-monitor transmission risk.
The outbreak crosses into M23 territory
The first confirmed Bundibugyo Ebola case outside Ituri appeared in South Kivu on 21 May, in territory the M23 rebel movement has controlled since February 2025; the 28-year-old patient died before diagnosis was confirmed, and residents torched a treatment facility on the response team's arrival.
With no DRC state health authority operating in M23-held areas, WHO and partner teams cannot enforce isolation, contact tracing or SAFE burial without the rebel administration's cooperation, which has not been guaranteed; by 18 July the national outbreak South Kivu now forms part of had reached 2,344 cases and 930 deaths, DRC's third-largest Ebola outbreak on record.