The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has warned that the deadly attack on a village in North Kivu has driven Ebola patients out of care, saying hundreds of people with confirmed or suspected infection fled for safety. In a statement issued on Sunday 8 November, the African Union health agency condemned the assault on civilians at Cantine-Aloya and called for a corridor of peace to protect patients, health workers and health facilities.

The attack struck the village, about 50 kilometres west of Beni, at around 11pm local time on Thursday 5 November. Attackers set fire to a health post and burned homes, and local civil society groups recovered 33 bodies, most bearing gunshot wounds, while others had been burned or hacked with machetes, Reuters reported. The Beni territorial administrator, Colonel Charles Omeonga, said a final death toll could not yet be established because heavy rain had hampered army operations and investigations.

Patients also fled a nearby hospital as the violence spread. The hospital's head doctor, Christian Kakule Vulembera, told Reuters that among those who fled were one patient with a confirmed Ebola infection and five suspected cases, including three high-risk contacts. Africa CDC said health facilities had been attacked and that patients, including hundreds of people with confirmed or suspected Ebola infection, had fled in search of safety, raising serious public health concerns.

The agency warned that every interruption to patient care, contact tracing and disease surveillance creates additional risks for communities already facing extraordinary hardship. People must be able to seek treatment safely, it said, and health workers must be able to deliver essential services without fear of violence. It called on all parties to respect the protection afforded to healthcare under international humanitarian law and to allow safe, sustained access to the affected communities.

North Kivu currently accounts for about half of all new infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ebola outbreak, according to Reuters, with authorities recording more than 10,000 cases and 5,000 deaths across the country. The outbreak involves the Bundibugyo species of Ebola virus. The displacement of patients and contacts from Cantine-Aloya now threatens to complicate the tracing work that is central to containing it.

Africa CDC said the attack was reportedly carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group recognised by Islamic State as an affiliate. Congolese authorities and civil society groups have also blamed the ADF for the raid. The agency said it stood in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and would continue working with national authorities and partners to support the Ebola response, strengthen disease surveillance and protect communities.