A night of gunfire, homes in flames and Ebola patients vanishing in the chaos: in Cantine, the ADF assault has revived fears of both massacres and a wider spread of the epidemic.
It was shortly before midnight on Thursday, November 5, when the first shots rang out in Cantine-Aloya. In the Kananga neighbourhood, several residents assumed an army patrol was passing and stayed indoors. Only later did they realise that armed men had come to kill in this settlement roughly 55 kilometres west of Beni, in North Kivu province.
A provisional toll released on Friday by community leaders in the Baswagha-Madiwe grouping puts the number of civilians killed at no fewer than 33. Some fifty houses were burned to the ground, together with several motorbikes and a vehicle. The Kananga, Lubumbashi, Yambiyaya and Kimakangé neighbourhoods bore the brunt of the violence, though bodies were reportedly also found in nearby villages, so the real death count could rise. Heavy rain falling over the area is slowing the search.
Local authorities blame the Allied Democratic Forces, an armed group of Ugandan origin affiliated with the Islamic State. Justin Paluku Kavalami, who heads civil society in the grouping, described the attack as sabotage. In his account, the assailants came from the Bapere sector, where they had already killed people and set homes alight before moving on to Cantine. The town had enjoyed several months of relative calm, and this fresh incursion raises fears that the violence is spreading back into areas that had found a measure of peace.
The human tragedy comes with a health threat. A health post was set on fire during the raid, and panic drove patients out of a nearby hospital. Among them were one confirmed Ebola patient and five suspected cases, three of whom are regarded as high-risk contacts. No new infections linked to their flight have been confirmed so far, yet response teams must now track these patients down in a region thrown into disarray by the fighting.
The wider picture offers little relief. Eastern Congo is simultaneously facing its worst cholera outbreak in decades, and the World Health Organization notes that insecurity and the remoteness of villages are hampering the response to both diseases. Every assault on a care facility sets health workers further back.
On Friday, the territorial administrator travelled to the town to assess the damage. Residents, meanwhile, keep leaving Cantine and the surrounding area. In the days ahead, three questions will dominate: the final toll of the attack, the whereabouts of the patients who left the hospital, and whether displaced families can return home safely.