Panzi Hospital, a facility in South Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a region overrun by a civil war that has displaced millions, recorded an 85% increase in newly reported survivors of sexual violence in the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to a report released Wednesday.

The hospital admitted 646 newly reported survivors between January and June, among them “119 women and girls who became pregnant as a result of rape, including 84 girls under the age of 18,” the report said.

South Kivu province recorded 91 suicides in the first five months of 2026, already three-quarters of the full-year total for 2025, according to Panzi’s psychiatric team.

Located in the South Kivu capital Bukavu, Panzi hospital was founded by gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, who was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for his treatment of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in eastern DRC. Since its founding in 1999, it has served as a last resort for survivors in a region where rape has been systematically used as a weapon of war across three decades of near-continuous conflict.

The United Nations Children’s agency (UNICEF) estimates a child is raped there every 30 minutes, accounting for up to 45% of sexual violence victims. Thousands of children were raped in the first two months of the civil war alone, a pattern UNICEF describes as the worst outbreak of such atrocities against children in decades.

UNFPA recorded 81,388 rape cases in eastern DRC between January and September 2025, a 32% increase on the same period in 2024. An estimated 250,000 to one million women have been raped in the country’s conflicts since the 1990s, according to the Global Survivors Fund. No country has recorded more conflict-related sexual violence in the period.

The surge is unfolding in the same provinces where DRC is battling the fastest-spreading and deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, stretching a health system that armed groups and funding cuts have devastated over the past 18 months.

The country has recorded 3,360 confirmed Ebola cases and 1,487 deaths in 10 weeks since the outbreak was declared on 15 May, nearing the case total of the 2018-2020 outbreak, which lasted roughly two years.

M23’s ‘reign of terror’

In a separate statement last week, UN experts called for an end to what they described as a “reign of terror” by the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group, citing a growing volume of testimony from civilian victims.

“Rapes, gang rapes, violent assaults and killings of civilians are a common feature of M23’s modus operandi,” the experts said. “While these crimes are not exclusive to M23, the number of individuals affected is staggering and must end.”

M23 has established a de facto system of authority in the territory it controls, using arbitrary detention, torture including sexual torture, forced labour and forced recruitment against the civilian population, the UN experts said.

Detainees are held in unofficial sites in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions with little or no medical access. Several deaths in custody have been recorded, and release has in many cases depended on payments demanded from relatives.

“The violence is unacceptable. It must end immediately and be thoroughly investigated so that those responsible are held accountable,” they said, calling on states and the UN to help revive the ceasefire signed between the Congolese government and M23 in December 2025.

“All parties to the conflict must comply with international human rights and humanitarian law and take all means necessary to protect civilians from harm.”

Care for sexual violence ‘almost non-existent’

The Panzi figures are the latest in a series of major documentation of escalating sexual violence in eastern DRC this year.

In January, Human Rights Watch and the Congolese women’s rights organisation SOFEPADI documented sexual violence by at least five non-state armed groups and by the Congolese army across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu – the three provinces at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak.

Survivor support collapsed at the same moment demand rose, the report found. The United States had been the primary donor of post-exposure prophylaxis kits, which must be administered within 72 hours to prevent HIV transmission and pregnancy. After US funding was withdrawn, clinics across the three provinces faced a near-total absence of PEP kits for months, leaving survivors without access to emergency care.

In April, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned that care for survivors of sexual violence in Ituri was “almost non-existent” as fighting between the Convention for the Popular Revolution and the DRC armed forces displaced tens of thousands. Seven of 14 health centres in the Fataki health zone shut down and relocated to displacement camps.

Nearly one million people are displaced across Ituri, according to OCHA, a figure that has continued to rise amid ongoing violence and the Ebola outbreak. The broader conflict across eastern DRC has displaced over 5.35 million people, UN Human Rights Office data shows.

“Many patients no longer dare to travel to seek care,” said Sylvain Groulx, MSF head of programmes in Ituri. MSF provided more than 10,000 consultations in Fataki after deploying in February and treated roughly 30 survivors of sexual violence, a fraction of the caseload it says exists.

DRC – sadly – isn’t alone. The UN Secretary General reported that more than 90,000 cases of conflict-related sexual violence were recorded globally in 2025.

The UN verified 9,788 of them across 21 situations of concern, more than double the 2024 figure, with the highest numbers in the Central African Republic, DRC, Haiti, Somalia and South Sudan. Sexual violence has also been extensively documented in Sudan, where mass rape has accompanied the Rapid Support Forces’ campaign in Darfur.

Food delivery suffers under Ebola restrictions

The same conflict driving sexual violence is now compounding the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak in DRC’s history. The country has recorded 3,360 confirmed cases and 1,487 deaths as of 29 July, according to its health ministry, nearing the 3,400 cases of the 2018-2020 outbreak in roughly 10 weeks rather than two years.

The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain, was declared on 15 May. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for it. Ituri accounts for around 90% of confirmed cases. The outbreak’s index case has not been identified, and roughly 80% of new infections are emerging from unknown chains of transmission, hampering contact tracing.

More than 100 health workers have been infected. Staff at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Centre in Bunia walked out over unpaid wages on 25 July, the second such strike at the epicentre in as many weeks, in a response already hampered by attacks on treatment centres and ongoing conflict.

The outbreak has reached five provinces, with more than 2.7 million people in those zones facing acute food insecurity, including 628,000 in emergency conditions. Measures to contain the spread, including border closures and movement restrictions, have disrupted supply routes, driving up food and fuel prices amid the shortage, the World Food Programme said Wednesday.

The agency needs $101 million for the Ebola response over the next six months.

“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” said Carl Skau, WFP’s acting executive director. “Food assistance is frontline Ebola containment. It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving.”

“We know what works. What we need now is the speed and resources to scale it before this outbreak outruns the response.”