Dangerous pathogens left unsecured at labs across Africa. Halted inspections for mpox, Ebola and other infections at airports and other checkpoints. Millions of unscreened animals shipped across borders. The Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid has hobbled programs that prevent and snuff out outbreaks around the world, scientists say, leaving people everywhere more vulnerable to…
Its soldiers are underpaid and underarmed. Its ranks are riddled with factions pursuing their own interests. And successive presidents are said to have kept it weak for fear of a coup. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s army has appeared too weak and dysfunctional to stop a militia that has swept through the eastern part of…
The mystery behind an unknown illness that has killed dozens in the Democratic Republic of Congo just 48 hours after they first showed symptoms deepened after the World Health Organization on Friday offered a new theory that seemingly contradicts African medical experts. At least 60 people have died and more than 1,000 have been sickened…
In his first interview since an armed group backed by Rwanda seized swaths of his country’s territory this year, Felix Tshisekedi, the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, offered the United States and Europe a stake in his country’s vast mineral wealth, a sector currently dominated by China. Congo is considered to be among…
On one side of the lake, lovers glide on canoes, friends ride jet-skis and families pose for pictures in the hazy sunset. On the other side, less than two miles away, dead bodies washed ashore while ammunition and discarded weapons littered the water. The shore of Lake Kivu in Rwanda offers leisure and relaxation. Across…
Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D. One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in…
Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday entered the vital trading hub of Bukavu in the east of the country, according to the fighters and videos circulated by local residents. If confirmed, Bukavu would be the latest city to fall in a sweeping offensive that has revealed the weakness of the crumbling Congolese…
Sexual violence against children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has soared in recent weeks, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Thursday, as disputes over land and mineral resources fuel fighting in the country. The organization, known as UNICEF, reported that health care facilities in the city of Goma and the surrounding areas…
It was one of the deadliest battles in decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the city of Goma fell to a rebel group known as M23 last week, the International Red Cross said that civilians had paid a heavy price, and that the death toll was expected to go up as more bodies…
Mechanical diggers have spent days excavating the dark, volcanic earth of the city of Goma, preparing long trenches in which to bury the victims of one of the deadliest battles in decades in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Humanitarian workers in hazmat suits and teenagers in flip-flops and dirty masks tended to the dead amid…