Four Ebola patients are unaccounted for after a treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo was set on fire.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has suspended activities in the region after the attack, the second in the last four days.

Unknown assailants burned tents and equipment on Wednesday at the centre in the eastern city of Butembo.

It comes after an attack on a treatment centre in Katwa on Sunday.

Hugues Robert, the group’s emergency desk manager, said: “In light of these two violent incidents, we have no choice but to suspend our activities until further notice.

“As medical responders, it is very painful to have to leave behind patients, their families, and other members of the community at such a critical time in the Ebola response.”

The violence has not helped fears that communities will continue to resist efforts to stop the country’s 10th Ebola outbreak. Health workers have struggled to win the trust of residents.

Armed groups have been vying for control of the mineral rich land.

Visiting the site of the latest attack, Oly Ilunga Kalenga, health minister in Congo, said: “I have only one thing to say, we must not forget that Ebola is a fatal illness, an extremely contagious illness.

“To this day 500 people died, there are entire families in North Kivu who have been decimated. In the West African epidemic, entire villages have disappeared.

“So, the message is that the teams fighting Ebola are here to ensure the population don’t suffer a great loss.”

After Wednesday’s attack, the health ministry said 32 of the 38 people being treated for suspected cases had fled.

Eight of the 12 patients with confirmed cases had remained in their beds, leaving four unaccounted for.

Authorities are searching for the four missing people, all of whom are highly infectious.

Mercy Corps, the humanitarian organisation, said it had personnel in North Kivu in Congo working on infection prevention and control.

Jean-Philippe Marcoux, Mercy Corps’ Congo director, said the attacks were “abhorrent”, adding: “It would be too easy to blame them on insecurity and violent groups within communities.”

He said: “Building community acceptance and securing trust has not been given the same weight as treatment, and we are continuing to see the consequences: suspicion abounds and case numbers rise.”

The Ebola outbreak declared in August is the second-largest in terms of cases and deaths, behind the outbreak in West Africa that killed 11,300 people between 2014-2016.

Since this one was declared in August, there have been 879 cases, 814 which were confirmed and 488 confirmed deaths.

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