San Francisco Frontiers - 'If Ebola comes, we'll be wiped out': DR Congo conflict-displaced

"If Ebola comes, we'll be wiped out as we're packed like sardines," the displaced woman told AFP at the sprawl of tarpaulin and tents on the outskirts of Bunia, the capital of the northeastern Ituri province, the epicentre of the latest outbreak.

Spread by close contact, the deadly viral disease has spread like wildfire in the vast central African country's east, where decades of armed conflicts have forced millions of people from their homes and into camps where they live cheek-by-jowl.

Nearly a million of those displaced are in Ituri -- among the provinces of the desperately impoverished DRC most prey to the east's litany of armed groups -- where the prospect of the epidemic spreading throughout the refugee camps has sparked alarm.

The World Health Organization's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus -- who is expected in Bunia on Friday -- has warned that the eastern DRC "faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict", with the fighting hampering efforts to tackle the epidemic.

Since an Ebola outbreak was declared in the DRC on May 15, the WHO has recorded 10 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC, out of more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases, according to its latest figures up to May 24.

- 'Everyone will die' -

No infection has yet been recorded at the Kingonze displaced persons' camp, which was built in 2018.

But conditions in the camp are ripe for a disease passed on through close physical contact and bodily fluids.

"I've already heard of Ebola and it's a disease that scares me a lot," Mapenzi said as she washed her laundry in a basin on the ground.

"We displaced people here have no hygiene. Our children play next to filthy toilets and even relieve themselves on the ground, in the middle of the tarpaulins that serve as our homes," the young woman said.

Deborah Nzale, a widow and head of the family, lives with nine people in a small tarpaulin shelter of barely three square metres (32 square feet).

"Given these conditions, how are we going to protect ourselves against this disease, when everyone tells us we need to distance ourselves to fight Ebola?" she asked.

No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola responsible for the latest outbreak.

So attempts to contain the virus's spread have had to rely mainly on protective measures and rapid contact tracing.

"We sleep piled on top of each other, with everyone's sweat," Nzale said.

"If a single person gets infected here in this camp, everyone will die."

- 'Ebola really kills' -

So far, Kingonze's displaced residents have not received any protective gear.

"Ebola really kills," a poster at the entrance warns.

"People looking to raise awareness come through here with messages but, surprisingly, we don't have the kit we need to protect ourselves," Budjo Amos complained.

"I don't even have soap to wash my hands," added the displaced man, who fled the province's common communal violence.

"The most urgent thing is to give us clean water."

There is just a single borehole in Kigonze. Empty jerrycans pile up in front. Water flows from the tap for just a few hours a day.

"The state has to intervene urgently," Amos pleaded.

Already long absent from swathes of Ituri, the Congolese state has been criticised for its delayed response to the outbreak, which was declared several weeks after the first cases emerged.

Many hospitals in the region still lack essential equipment, especially isolation tents for patients.

According to Ituri's military governor, the province counts around 61 displaced persons camps housing nearly 970,000 people.

"We need to deploy equipment and qualified, specialist medical staff as quickly as possible," Lieutenant General Johnny Luboya Nkashama told AFP on Friday, "to spare this province from disaster".

J.Scott--SFF