This blog is part of a new blog series Ground Level, written by McCain Global Leaders alumni, and does not reflect the views of the McCain Institute.
In the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), crises do not merely overlap; they feed into one another. While the terror imposed by armed and terrorist groups—from the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP/ADF)[1] to the AFC-M23[2] movement and local militias—keeps the populations of Ituri and the two Kivu provinces in permanent agony, an invisible specter has once again entered this theater of suffering.
On May 15, the Ministry of Health had to officially declare the 17th Ebola epidemic in the country’s history. For the international community, the event is often perceived as just another health emergency, an isolated medical anomaly that simply needs to be contained. For us, as civil society actors on the ground, it is a magnifying glass that exposes our security failures and our political paralysis. Reducing this crisis to its clinical dimension alone would be a fundamental, even dangerous error. This epidemic is a major geopolitical issue that thrives on war, the uncontrolled prevalence of weapons, and the cynical detachment of political institutions that leads to systemic abandonment.
The Medical Illusion in the Face of the Bundibugyo Strain
The clinical reality of this epidemic is terrifying. We are not facing the more common and studied “Zaire” strain, for which approved and field-tested vaccines exist. It is the rare and deadly Bundibugyo strain that is spreading at lightning speed. As of early July 2026, the situation report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa CDC[3] presents a devastating toll: 600 deaths out of 1,759 confirmed cases.
The bitter truth is that there is currently no approved vaccine for this specific strain, rendering standard medical countermeasures obsolete. The global response is temporarily reduced to two rudimentary, centuries-old weapons: isolation and contact tracing. Lacking an available serum, the Africa CDC is desperately trying to validate expanded access protocols for candidate vaccines in order to initiate a ring vaccination strategy.
Yet, a basic question of logic arises: how can you implement ring vaccination or trace contacts in areas of massive displacement, where entire villages flee each night from Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) massacres and the exactions of local armed militias? How do you restore community trust and convince traumatized populations that this virus is real, deadly, and constitutes a first-order public emergency?
In rural areas along the Butembo-Beni-Bunia axis, the refusal to believe in the virus stems neither from ignorance nor a lack of education. It is born out of a rational and deep-seated trauma. The populations remember the cynicism of the “Ebola Business[4]” during previous epidemics. This phenomenon—characterized by the spectacular deployment of brand-new white pick-up trucks and highly paid expatriate staff, even as massacres of civilians continued just a few kilometers away from the treatment centers—profoundly shattered public trust. The peasant in the East does not doubt science; they doubt the industry that has built itself upon their suffering.
The Sanitary Embargo and the Shifting Geography of the Blockade
Today, the epidemic has redrawn the map of regional chaos, transforming the mobility of human rights defenders and medical teams into a logistical nightmare that reaches far beyond provincial borders. At the local level, the AFC/M23 rebel coalition has locked down the strategic Kanyabayonga axis on National Road 2 (RN2) and drastically filters access toward the major city of Goma. The rebel movement completely paralyzes the transit of passengers coming from the Grand Nord, particularly the Beni-Butembo axis, while only authorizing commercial traffic. This arbitrary filtering fragments the social fabric and cuts off civil actors from their bases, preventing any rapid deployment of human rights sentinels between North Kivu and Ituri.
In the past, to navigate these internal roadblocks and maintain the link between the provinces and major urban centers, we used regional bypass routes by transiting through Uganda and Rwanda. This rescue network was completely broken when the detection of cross-border cases triggered a severe diplomatic and sanitary blockade at the DRC borders. Under the pretext of containing the Bundibugyo strain, neighboring countries established a de facto sanitary embargo, implementing strict closures of land borders to travelers, and suspending trans-border transportation.
A notable shift in this regional blockade occurred on July 2, 2026, when the main borders between the DRC and Rwanda at Goma and Gisenyi were officially reopened after more than a week without a single active case recorded in that specific border zone. While this reopening has allowed local merchants and travelers to resume their movements, transit remains strictly contingent upon rigorous epidemiological screening and adherence to public health protocols enforced by both governments.
However, this peripheral containment still leaves internal travel heavily constrained. In the battered territories of the East, the national airspace remains a bottleneck. Although landing strips in Ituri and North Kivu remain technically open, regular commercial flights and domestic connections are drastically restricted for the exclusive benefit of sanitary and military requirements. The eastern DRC remains essentially a succession of disconnected enclaves, segmented by shifting front lines and militarized sanitary barriers.
The Sacrificed Sentinels: The Silence of the Civic Space
While political headquarters and regional capitals engage in this geopolitical war of position, the internal civic space is undergoing a silent and devastating assault. Journalists, activists, and human rights defenders who courageously denounce targeted assassinations and illegal detentions in the face of these major security crises are fleeing the region one after another.
The combination of closed borders and internal armed barriers has paralyzed the capacity of broader civil society networks to join containment efforts. At this exact moment, while all international spotlights are focused on epidemiological data, local civil society is paying the ultimate price—systematically reduced to silence under the cover of public health imperatives that compound pre-existing security restrictions.
It is within this vacuum that local civil society keeps the response alive. Far from the marble halls of Washington or the air-conditioned offices of UN agencies, it is community focal points, NGO awareness agents, and young activists who are the true first responders. Operating without adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), they transport highly contagious patients on motorcycles and manage health alerts in red zones where official ambulances refuse to enter out of fear of ISCAP ambushes or due to community hostility.
By going into direct, unprotected contact with contaminated individuals, several of my closest colleagues contracted the virus. They died in total obscurity and were buried in haste. They must not be reduced to mere statistics of the Bundibugyo strain. They were professionals of human dignity, sacrificed on the front lines of abandonment.
The Strategic Imperative for International Decision-Makers
For international donors, the US Department of State, and institutions of influence, the lesson to be drawn from this crisis must be stripped of any superficial humanitarian romanticism. Funding a purely medical response in the DRC while ignoring the geopolitics of the conflict is a strategy doomed to fail.
Injecting millions of dollars into laboratory infrastructures without demanding targeted sanctions against those who militarize blockades, without imposing the opening of neutral and secure sanitary corridors, and without demanding an end to the blackmail on access to healthcare, simply amounts to subsidizing inertia.
Global decision-makers must urgently demand immediate and monitored humanitarian ceasefires to allow for unhindered medical deployment across conflict lines. Furthermore, international funding must be decentralized and directed straight toward local civil society organizations. We are the only actors capable of operating flexibly on both sides of the front lines and navigating complex community dynamics.
We will not defeat the Bundibugyo virus solely with microscopes and promises of millions of dollars. We will defeat it by remaining faithful to local accountability, protecting the civic space, and respecting the lives of those who defend it. Public health is intrinsically inseparable from justice. And human dignity, unlike the virus, should not depend on front lines.
Institutional Context & Reference Notes
[1] The Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) is the official branch of the Islamic State (IS) operating in Central Africa, primarily active in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. This group is the structural evolution of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel group established for decades in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces of the DRC. In 2019, ADF leader Musa Baluku pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which subsequently recognized the group as its official Central African province. ISCAP is notorious for its brutal and lethal attacks against civilians, assaults on mining sites in eastern DRC, and bombing campaigns in Uganda.
[2] AFC-M23 (Alliance Fleuve Congo / Mouvement du 23 mars), The Congo River Alliance / March 23 Movement, is a rebel politico-military coalition formed in late 2023. It emerged from the merger between the M23 armed rebellion (traditionally Tutsi-dominated) and the political opposition platform led by Corneille Nangaa. Backed by Rwanda, this group seeks to overthrow the DRC government and administers conquered areas of the Kivu provinces as a de facto “proto-state.” Its major offensives and governance of occupied territories are accompanied by grave allegations of human rights abuses documented by international NGOs.
[3] The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) is the autonomous public health agency of the African Union. Its mandate is to support member states in strengthening their healthcare systems, disease surveillance, and emergency preparedness. The agency is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
[4] “Ebola Business” : A critical term used to denote the networks of corruption, embezzlement, and over-invoicing by both local and international actors during public health responses in the DRC. This deeply entrenched profiteering—extensively documented by the Congo Research Group (CRG/Ebuteli) and The New Humanitarian—includes the trading of jobs for bribes, the opaque militarization of health interventions, and personal enrichment by political elites, all of which have severely undermined public trust in humanitarian aid.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigation/2020/06/18/Ebola-corruption-aid-sector
https://www.ebuteli.org/publications/rapports/rebelles-medecins-et-marchands-de-violence-comment-la-lutte-contre-ebola-est-devenue-une-partie-du-conflit-dans-l-est-de-la-rdc
Ground Level is a blog series featuring expert perspectives from McCain Global Leaders alumni, offering firsthand insight on events shaping democracy, human rights, and freedom in their home countries.