Congo

May 15 (UPI) — The Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on Friday as 65 people have died from the disease in the country’s eastern region.

There have been about 246 cases reported, many of them in the Ituri province’s small mining towns of Mongbwalu and Rwampara. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Friday that it is meeting with DRC, Ugandan and South Sudanese leaders to prepare a response to the outbreak.

Uganda and South Sudan border the Ituri province.

Africa CDC said that the DRC’s national research laboratory has detected Ebola in 13 of 20 samples it has tested.

There have been 16 prior Ebola outbreaks in the DRC since 1976 when it first identified the virus within its borders. Vaccines are available for the Zaire strain. Africa CDC said that early testing indicates the current strain is not the Zaire strain.

“Africa CDC stands in solidarity with the government and people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo as they respond to this outbreak,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, director general of Africa CDC, said in a statement. “Given the high population movement between affected areas and neighboring countries, rapid regional coordination is essential.”

The mining towns where the outbreak is centered experience a lot of inbound and outbound traffic, raising concerns about the disease spreading further.

Ebola is a severe illness with a high fatality rate in humans, reaching as high as 90% in some cases, the World Health Organization says.

Infection can be spread by direct contact with a person who is infected or object surfaces that are contaminated with bodily fluids from a person who is sick or has died from the disease.

The Ebola virus can incubate between two and 21 days. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, malaise, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, before progressing to vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash and symptoms related to impaired kidney and liver functions.

There were 64 cases of Ebola reported in the DRC last year, with 45 deaths, a 70% rate of fatality, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That outbreak occurred from September to December in the remote Bulape health zone in the Kasai province, which has a relatively low population density.

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to bring a Colombian woman back to the U.S. from Congo, after she was deported to the African nation that had refused to accept her.

The deportation of Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata “was likely illegal,” U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ruled Wednesday.

Zapata, 55, who has diabetes and a thyroid condition, “has been sent to a country that refused to accept her because they cannot provide sufficient medical care,” the ruling said. “As a result, she faces a daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death.”

Black spots began to grow on Zapata’s back and foot while she was in detention, her skin started to peel and her nails blackened, according to a declaration that Zapata submitted in court, and which was provided to the AP by her lawyer.

“She’s not doing well and does worry that she’s going to die,” her lawyer, Lauren O’Neal, said.

Zapata entered the U.S. from Mexico in August 2024 and was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. Since being deported, she has lived in a hotel in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. The hotel gates are locked, O’Neal said. Zapata and other deportees are rarely allowed out, and only with supervision, she said.

Zapata was among thousands of immigrants living legally in the U.S., waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they were suddenly issued deportation decrees that ordered them expelled to countries where most had no connections.

More than 15,000 third-country deportation orders were issued in the White House push for ever more immigrant expulsions, advocacy groups say, though only a fraction of the orders have been carried out.

Few details are known about the agreements to accept these deportees, though the U.S. has signed them with a range of countries, including Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, Cameroon and Congo. Advocacy groups estimate only a couple of hundred third-country deportations, at most, have been carried out.

Galofaro writes for the Associated Press.

The security landscape along the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan is deteriorating amid a series of alarming attacks attributed to armed men believed to be South Sudanese soldiers. The Kakwa chiefdom, particularly the Roumou tribal group and the village of Agoroba in Aru territory, Ituri province, has been severely affected by these incursions. 

Local sources said the suspected South Sudanese soldiers looted cattle and money, and abducted Congolese civilians.

“These armed men coming from South Sudan have looted from the population, taking away cows, goats, money, and even abducting young men, whom they continue to hold in the bushes. This situation does not date today. It has been several months since these armed men have been crossing the border to attack our villages,” a local chief told HumAngle.

Dieudonne Tabani, a national parliamentarian,  has raised concerns about the worsening security situation along the border between the DRC and South Sudan in the Aru territory of Ituri province. He condemned how the repeated incursions in several localities of Kakwa chiefdom are characterised by the looting of belongings as well as the abduction of civilians.

“The number of our soldiers along the border with South Sudan is very minimal. When these armed men enter, they are not faced by a rigorous response. We call on the provincial authorities, under the state of siege, to urgently reinforce the military presence in the zone,” a local in the Ituri province told HumAngle. “The central government must also get involved in diplomatic overtures with a view to clearly demarcating the boundary, most times given as a reason for the incursions into our territory.”

Amid this troubling situation, Ituri provincial authorities have called on the population to remain calm, assuring that the authorities in Kinshasa have already been briefed and that measures will eventually be taken to secure the zone.

In January, DRC and South Sudan completed a major prisoner exchange following a diplomatic meeting. The border town of the Aru territory in the DRC serves as a haven for numerous South Sudanese refugees escaping the civil conflict in their homeland.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort and relatives of U.S. service members stuck in Qatar to a third country, the U.S. government and some advocates said. Congo is an option, the advocates said.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said Wednesday that U.S. officials informed him and other groups of discussions between the United States and Congo about taking the Afghan refugees who have been in limbo at a U.S. base in Doha for the last year.

The 1,100 refugees at Camp As-Sayliyah include Afghans who served as interpreters and with Special Operations Forces as well as the immediate families of more than 150 active-duty U.S. military members.

The State Department said Wednesday that it is working to identify options to “voluntarily” resettle the refugees in a third country, but it did not confirm which nations were being discussed.

An alternative provided to the refugees, VanDiver said, is to return to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal or even death at the hands of the Taliban for working alongside the U.S. during the two-decade war.

“You cannot call a choice voluntary when the two options are Congo and the Taliban, civil war or an oppressor who wants to kill you,” VanDiver said at a virtual news conference. “That is not a choice. That is a confession extracted under duress.”

The discussions — which were reported earlier by the New York Times — come more than a year after President Trump paused his predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration.

That policy left thousands of refugees who fled war and persecution, and had gone through a sometimes years-long vetting process to start new lives in America, stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar.

From one war-torn country to another

Negotiations between the U.S. and several other countries, including Botswana and Malaysia, started months ago, according to an executive at a refugee resettlement agency who was briefed by U.S. officials. The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share private negotiations, said that Botswana was seen by many refugee advocates as the most promising option but that talks between senior U.S. officials and the country’s leadership fell through. In early April, the executive was briefed that Congo was now the main option being discussed.

A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity said they had heard from State Department personnel that the U.S. was looking at sending the Afghans at the base in Qatar to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The person said the Afghans were told Wednesday that there was no final deal on where to send them.

The base in Doha “was always intended as a transit platform. It was never designed to hold families for months or years, which is the situation that people are currently in,” said Jon Finer, who was deputy national security advisor to then-President Biden. “What I want to emphasize is that this was intended to honor a wartime commitment.”

Finer and other former U.S. officials and refugee advocates warned of the risk of resettling Afghans in Congo, a country that U.N. officials say is facing “one of the most acute humanitarian emergencies in the world.”

The African country has been battered by decades-long fighting between government forces and Rwanda-backed rebels in its eastern region.

Congolese authorities did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on the discussions, which did not come as a surprise to some there. Congo is one of at least eight African nations that were paid millions in controversial deals with the Trump administration to receive migrants deported from the U.S. to countries other than their own.

Like most other African nations involved in the deportation program, Congo is also among the worst-hit by the Trump administration’s policies on aid and trade. At least 70% of the country’s humanitarian aid came from the U.S. before Trump’s second term, and aid workers say American aid cuts have led to avoidable deaths in the conflict-hit region.

Sean Jamshidi — an Afghan American who served in the U.S. military, including a stint in Congo — said he was deeply concerned about his brother possibly being sent from the Doha base to the war-torn country.

“I saw the security situation and what it looked like there. I saw the displacement camps. … I stood in places where the United Nations has counted the dead,” Jamshidi said. “I’m telling you, as someone who has been in uniform, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a place you send vetted Afghan allies and their children to live.”

Refugees are in the dark as they await their fate

Negina Khalili, a former prosecutor in Afghanistan who fled during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, has been waiting to hear about the resettlement status of her father, brother and stepmother since they arrived at the Doha base in January 2025. That was just days before Trump suspended the refugee program soon after he returned to the White House.

Khalili told the Associated Press on Wednesday that she spoke to her family about reports that they could be sent to Congo.

“They are not giving them any information or updates regarding which countries they will go to,” she said. “They were so stressed and worried about it and said that Congo is not a safe place either. They don’t know if it’s a temporary location for them there or a permanent location. They are worried.”

She said U.S. officials at the camp have been suggesting to refugees that they go back to Afghanistan and offering them money to do so.

Amiri, Santana and Asadu write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York and Asadu from Abuja, Nigeria. AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

KINSHASA, Congo — Around 15 people deported from the United States landed in Congo’s capital Kinshasa early Friday, one of their lawyers told the Associated Press.

It was the latest example of the Trump administration using agreements with African countries to accelerate migrant removals that have raised questions about respect for the migrants’ rights.

An official at the Congolese migration agency confirmed the arrivals but didn’t provide details.

The deportees are all from Latin America and the Congolese government plans to keep them in the country for a short period, said U.S. attorney Alma David, who represents one of the deportees. She has been speaking with her client since arriving in Kinshasa.

All the deportees are believed to have legal protection from U.S. judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, David said. The deportees are believed to be staying at a hotel in Kinshasa.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated agency, will be involved to offer “assisted voluntary return,” David told AP.

“The fact that the focus is on offering them ‘voluntary’ return to their home country when they spent months in immigration detention in the U.S. fighting hard to not have to go home is very alarming,” she said.

An International Organization for Migration spokesperson said the organization was providing humanitarian assistance to the deportees at the request of the Congolese government. It said it may also offer assisted voluntary return, which is “strictly voluntary and based on free, prior and informed consent.”

Congo’s Ministry of Communications said in a statement earlier this month that it will receive some migrants as part of a new deal under the Trump administration’s third-country program.

It described the arrangement as a “temporary” one that reflects Congo’s “commitment to human dignity and international solidarity.” It would come with zero costs to the government with the U.S. covering the needed logistics, it said.

The statement said no automatic transfer of the deportees is planned, adding: “Each situation will be subject to individual review in accordance with the laws of the Republic and national security requirements.”

The U.S. has struck such third-country deportation deals with at least seven other African nations, many of them among countries hit hardest by the Trump administration’s policies restricting trade, aid and migration.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40 million to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a report released recently by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Lawyers and activists have raised questions over the nature of the deals with countries in Africa and elsewhere. Several of the African nations that have signed such deals have notoriously repressive governments and poor human rights records — including Eswatini, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

Kamale and Banchereau write for the Associated Press. Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. AP writer Saleh Mwanamilongo in Bonn, Germany contributed to this report.