More than 1600 people have died in this year-long outbreak.

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they’ve undertaken mass vaccinations in Goma, the city of more two million people on the border with Rwanda.

The EBOLA victims is a pastor to who came from the city of Butembo where he was receiving treatment.

The passengers on the bus with him have been identified and isolated.

Assurances that the local health authorities have the situation under control must be seen against similar statements  made a year ago when the EBOLA outbreak began.

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A Cameroonian doctor working the World Health Organization had died in an attack on an EBOLA treatment centre in Butembo.

EBOLA has killed nearly 900 people in the Eastern DRC in the past nine months.

The spike in new infections this month has been the highest in this outbreak which is second largest on the planet.

Locals who feel the symptoms of the hemorrhagic disease refuse to go treatment centers, fearing they will die or be killed.

Locals have chased off foreign health workers, claiming they brought EBOLA to the DRC and are  there to make money.

Political suspicion is at fever pitch because area was excluded from the voting process last December on account of the EBOLA outbreak.

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The organisation has had to pulls it workers out of two treatment centers  torched by angry local residents.

Medicines Sans Frontiers blamed deepening community district for the failure of medical workers to contain the outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic disease that already killed 570 people these past seven months.

MSF points to political, social and economic grievances in the eastern DRC and the overly militarized response to the EBOLA outbreak.

The organisation’s health care centers in Butembo and Katwa were burned down, forcing the health workers to withdraw.

There is a very real danger of EBOLA spreading across the DRC border into Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.  

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They say this violence has become politicized by the elections at the end of last year.

Two health centers closed by violence in eastern DRC have re-opened but without volunteers from Medicines Sans Frontiers who says it is impossible to carry out vital treatment and vaccinations there.

WHO manager Michel Yao says equipment and vehicles were damaged, making the task more difficult.

Focal point of the violence is Butembo that has close ties with neighbouring  Uganda.

More than 560 people have died in the latest EBOLA outbreak that’s become the second worst in recorded history. More than 300 people are infected.

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The deadly haemorrhagic disease broke out in a conflict zone and is barely contained within porous borders. Those fighting it fear what they call a perfect storm of infection.

The Ebola outbreak in the eastern DRC has become the second deadliest the planet has experienced with more than 400 deaths and hundreds more infected.

Desperate to avoid a recurrence of the West Africa  outbreak that killed more than 11 000 people  between 2013 and 2016, health workers are returning to their posts abandoned because of pre-election violence in Benni and Butembo.

Parallel contingency efforts are being  undertaken in Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and Uganda where some  Congolese fled to escape that violence. 

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The victims, in the eastern state of South Kivu, include a policeman and an election official.

Campaigners for opposition candidate Felix Tshisekedi say the four deaths occurred during clashes at a polling station in the Walungu area.

Campaign director Vital Kamerhe says violence broke out after the electoral official was accused of trying to rig the vote in favour of Emmanuel Ramazini Shadary, the candidate championed by President Joseph Kabila in power for 17 years.

The angry crowd started fighting with police, leaving a policeman, and electoral official and two voters dead

The deaths occurred at an opposition stronghold near the cities of Beni and Butembo where voting was postponed until March. 

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Bart Ouvry is being booted out because the EU extended sanctions against ruling party candidate Emmanuel Shadary.

EU sanctions were slapped on Emmanuel Shadary for his role, as a member of Joseph Kabila’s government, in the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2017.

Despite objections from the DRC government, the EU’s extended these punitive measures.

Violence and chaos reigns in the DRC ahead of tomorrow’s presidential elections.

Rioters in the eastern city of Beni, ransacked an EBOLA assessment centre, protesting against the authorities decision to delay voting there and in Butembo and Yumbi until March because of violence and the spreading EBOLA outbreak.

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They’re saying it would be impossible to hold a credible process  in these areas because of insecurity and the EBOLA outbreak.

The opposition’s calling it another strategy to hijack the truth of the poll.

The areas where the vote has been further delayed are Beni and Butembo at the epicenter of the EBOLA outbreak in the east of the DRC and Yumbi in the west , where 100 people died in ethnic clashes last week.

The move by the electoral commission means the votes of  more than a million of the country’s 46 electors will not be considered in the results to be announced next month.

Beni and Butembo are considered opposition bastions.

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The SDNDF member died in clashes sparked by President Joseph Kabila’s decision to stay in office after his constitutional mandate expires today.

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SANDF spokesman Ronald Maseko says they’ll release a statement when the soldier’s family has been informed.

The peacekeeper was one of seven people who died in clashes in the North Kivu city of Butembo.

He and a policemen and five members of the Mai Mai were killed when the militia attacked a prison and other government installations.

Congolese officials have braced for further attacks in the giant central African country where the opposition has violently opposed what it calls  a power grab by President Joseph Kabila.

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Five rebels and policemen were killed when police confronted militia attacking a prison.

The deal clashes, probably involving Mal Mal fighters took place in Butembo, a city of about a million people in North Kivu province.

The militia attacked a prison and other installations.

Mai-Mai fighters  have staged several attacks in Butembo in recent months.

The  reasons for their return are unclear, some residents say they have heard some fighters claim they are seeking to oust Kabila.

The president’s mandate ends today.

He’s barred from a third mandate under the constitution and the opposition has accused the authorities of delaying an election in the hope of reworking the constitution to extend his tenure.

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