Déborah Nzale, a displaced person living in the Kigonze camp looks on in Bunia, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 28, 2026.
Dorcas Mapenzi fears the worst if Ebola comes to the Kingonze camp, where she lives alongside more than 25,000 other displaced people in the conflict-hit eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
"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.
