‘Everyone was afraid’: DRC’s most vulnerable on the mpox frontline

Red Cross workers raise awareness about mpox and hygiene among internally displaced people in the Don Bosco camp in Goma, DRC. Photograph: Moise Kasereka/EPA

First, liquid-filled blisters developed on three-year-old Marceline Désiré’s back. Then about two weeks later, they appeared on her younger brother Jordan’s body, starting from his neck and then spreading to his back. The two children spent weeks in hospital until they recovered.

As Marceline sat on the ground inside their tarpaulin shelter at the Mudja displacement camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday, Jordan in the arms of their mother, Bambire Rwanika, next to her, lesions and scars caused by mpox were still visible, especially on Marceline.