TL;DR
WHO declared the Ebola outbreak in DRC and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, the highest alert it can issue short of a pandemic declaration. Israeli forces intercepted the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla in international waters Sunday morning. Lebanon's ceasefire, technically extended by 45 days on Friday, was violated within hours, with three paramedics among the dead. Russia launched its largest aerial assault of the war on Ukraine over the weekend, killing dozens of civilians. And in Sudan, drone strikes hit civilian trucks and electricity infrastructure while thousands more were displaced from Blue Nile State.
Five stories below.
1. DRC/Uganda: WHO calls Ebola a global health emergency
On Sunday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the Ebola outbreak in DRC's Ituri province and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern. The figures as of Sunday: more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths. Ten confirmed. Two confirmed cases in Kampala, Uganda's capital, both involving people who had travelled from DRC, confirmed within 24 hours of each other on 15 and 16 May.
The strain matters. This is the Bundibugyo virus, only the third time it has been reported in history. There are no approved vaccines or treatments for it. The experimental candidate that exists has only been tested on monkeys, with around 50% efficacy, and hasn't been assessed in humans. The WHO statement is explicit: the high positivity rate of initial samples (eight positives among 13 collected across different areas), the spread across multiple health zones, the cross-border transmission, and the deaths among healthcare workers all suggest the outbreak is considerably larger than what's currently being detected. Ituri is also one of the DRC provinces already running a conflict-driven humanitarian crisis, with high population mobility, poor healthcare infrastructure, and ongoing insecurity. The 2018-19 North Kivu and Ituri Ebola outbreak, caused by a different strain, infected more than 3,400 people and killed over 2,200. Nobody is saying we're heading there. But that's the context people in the building are carrying around.
Over 30 CDC staff are already in DRC. The US invoked a public health law this morning limiting entry from the affected region. Africa CDC is leading the regional response. MSF's emergency programme manager said on Saturday that in Ituri many people already struggle to access healthcare and live with ongoing insecurity, making rapid action critical.
WHO PHEIC declaration | CNN explainer | NPR
2. Gaza: the flotilla intercepted, the blockade holds
Israeli military vessels intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday. Seventeen boats stopped, contact lost with close to two dozen vessels in the eastern Mediterranean. The flotilla was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and breach the maritime blockade that has been in place since October 2023.
One of the activists on board, Martina Comparelli, got a message out before contact was lost. "We are being intercepted in broad daylight. The occupation forces have no shame whatsoever. They're doing it in front of the whole world, because they know that everything they did in the past has been met with full impunity." That's the kind of line that's going to circulate.
The weekend also brought word that the Israeli Cabinet approved plans to build a military compound at the former UNRWA headquarters site in Gaza. And on Friday, Israeli forces assassinated Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the head of Hamas's military wing, in a strike on a residential building in Gaza City. The ceasefire that was announced in early April is effectively dead as a practical matter, whatever its technical status. More on the Lebanon angle below.
3. Lebanon: 670 dead since April ceasefire, paramedics killed Friday
The US State Department announced on Friday that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend the ceasefire by 45 days. Hours later, Israeli forces killed at least six people in southern Lebanon, including three paramedics who were responding to an earlier incident in the towns of Qalaway and Tibnin when they were struck. The strikes continued through the weekend, killing at least five more people and injuring over a dozen.
Since the ceasefire first came into effect in mid-April, more than 670 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon. The number killed since the escalation began in early March is approaching 3,000. WHO has recorded 158 attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel since March, resulting in 108 deaths and 249 injuries. More than 1 million people, roughly one in five Lebanese, have been displaced. Over the weekend, renewed displacement orders were issued for multiple towns and villages in southern Lebanon and the Nabatieh governorate, pushing more families into already-strained collective shelters.
OCHA notes that displaced people (particularly pregnant women) face limited access to adequate food, which is compounding health risks. Partners have managed to deliver: more than 585 hospital admissions supported, 18,000 vaccine doses administered, 4,300 prenatal care consultations, 8.4 million meals distributed. The response is real, so is the gap between what's being delivered and what's needed.
OCHA/GlobalSecurity briefing | Havana Times
4. Sudan: civilian trucks hit, 4,600 displaced in a single day
Three stories from the Sudan file over the weekend, none of them good.
On Saturday, more than 17 people were killed when a civilian truck travelling from Khumi village toward Abu Zabad in West Kordofan State was struck. Drone strikes were reported in both North and South Darfur States, including near the border crossing at Al Tina and in Nyala. And in Blue Nile State (where El Fasher's fate is being watched as a possible preview) an airstrike on a major electricity station caused widespread blackouts across the capital Damazin, cutting water and health services. IOM reports that heightened insecurity in Blue Nile State displaced more than 4,600 people from villages in Al Kurmuk locality on Thursday alone.
In El Fasher itself, insecurity continues to push people from surrounding villages into the city, while those already there face acute shortages of food, water, and essential services. Nearly 15,000 people have arrived in Tawila in recent weeks, overwhelming host communities that were already stretched before this latest wave.
OCHA's line (that attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are clear violations of IHL and must stop immediately) is accurate and has been said many times. What follows from it, in terms of any enforcement mechanism, remains the question that nobody in the Council has answered.
UN Press Briefing | OCHA top news
5. Ukraine: largest aerial assault of the war, prisoner exchange holds
Russia launched what officials and analysts are describing as the largest sustained aerial assault of the war between Friday and Sunday: more than 1,600 drones and missiles directed at Kyiv and other cities. At least 30 people were killed. OCHA's weekend reporting confirmed over 100 civilian casualties between Friday and Sunday morning, including nearly 20 deaths and two children killed. The regions of Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia were hit hardest. Ukraine's Energy Ministry reported fresh attacks on critical facilities in at least eight regions.
The one thing that held: the prisoner exchange. Russia and Ukraine each released 205 prisoners of war over the weekend, the first stage of a larger 1,000-for-1,000 agreement that Zelensky confirmed publicly. Many of the freed Ukrainian troops had been captured during the siege of Mariupol in 2022. Kyiv's human rights commissioner described it as a continuation of recent exchanges. It is one of the very few things the two sides have managed to do together while the war escalates everywhere else.
The OHCHR's February report is worth keeping in mind as the prisoner file develops. More than 1,700 Ukrainians remain arbitrarily detained and held in Russian prisons, many in critical health and denied medical care. Over 92% of released civilian detainees interviewed between 2023 and 2025 reported being tortured during captivity. The exchange is welcome. The broader picture is not.
Graphic News / Reuters | OCHA Ukraine
That's the weekend round-up. The Ebola PHEIC declaration is the story to watch most closely this week: the next 72 hours of case reporting from Ituri will tell us a lot about whether the containment effort is working. The flotilla interception will land at the Council. Sudan's Blue Nile trajectory is one to keep an eye on. You can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails.
