Inside the Ebola Epicenter, the Virus Rages With Little to Stop It


A relative and a medical worker caring for Christiane Bahati, an Ebola patient in Mongbwalu, shortly before she fell into a coma and died.

A remote gold mining town is under siege, as medical workers struggle to beat back a surge of deaths and infections.

By Declan Walsh
Photographs by Arlette Bashizi
Declan Walsh and Arlette Bashizi reported from inside an Ebola ward in Mongbwalu, Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak.

May 30, 2026

In the cramped, dilapidated Ebola ward, a 5-year-old boy languished on a bare mattress, a tissue stuffed into his nose to stanch the incessant bleeding. His father stood over him, eyes clouded with worry.

A few beds away lay the body of Christiane Bahati, 21, who had died seven hours earlier but had not yet been taken away. Her shoes were still tucked under the bed, her wailing relatives gathered outside the ward doors.

The body, covered by a thin sheet, was highly contagious. Yet hardly anyone in the ward was protected. Relatives came and went, carrying food and water to ailing patients because the hospital had none to give them. A few wore rubber gloves or pulled a scarf across their mouths. Most had nothing at all.

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At the Ebola ward in Mongbwalu General Hospital, in Ituri Province, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo.Credit Declan Walsh/The New York Times)

In the next ward lay the hospital’s laboratory technician, also sick. Seven other hospital workers had already died from suspected Ebola. Few of the staff members had ever been trained to fight the disease, and the most rudimentary equipment was in dangerously short supply: tests, protective suits, goggles, masks, even drinking water.

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