Congo needs aid to evacuate people in rebel-hit east

The United Nations will need to mobilise a record $2.25 billion this year to address the mass displacement of people in east Democratic Republic of Congo following a major offensive by M23 rebels last year, the U.N. coordinator for the country, Bruno Lemarquis, said on Wednesday.

Decades of militia violence in Congo’s vast mineral-rich east worsened last year after the Tutsi-led M23 staged a major come-back in North-Kivu province in March, uprooting more than 600,000 people, according to the U.N.

That has added to hordes of others displaced across east Congo over the years.

Lemarquis said in a statement before a ceremony in the capital Kinshasa that $2.25 billion would be required to resolve this crisis.

“Today, the DRC has 5.7 million internally displaced people, the largest number on the African continent,” he told journalists during an interview on Tuesday.

“The vast majority of the targeted humanitarian needs are in Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and the Kasai,” he said, referring to the country’s four eastern provinces.

He said this higher 2023 budget was also needed to cover increases in operational costs linked to soaring global prices due to the war in Ukraine.

In 2022, the U.N. had planned to spend $1.88 billion for Congo. Only 48% of this objective was met, reaching only 5 million out of 8.8 million targeted people. Funds are needed for food, water, shelter and medicine.

The army has struggled to resolve a conflict that has caused a diplomatic spat with neighbouring Rwanda, which Congo accuses of backing the rebels. Rwanda denies this.

Spiralling insecurity in the east is adding to other ongoing humanitarian crises such as growing food insecurity linked to the impact of climate change.

Congo is also regularly hit with outbreaks of measles, the latest of which infected 148,600 people and killed 1,800 last years, medical charity Medicines Sans Frontiers said on Tuesday.

The latest rebel offensive has added to concerns about parliamentary and presidential elections on Dec. 20.

africanews