UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, warns of escalating violence and widespread human rights abuses in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which have triggered a new wave of displacement both inside and outside the country.
Despite the recent ceasefire agreement in North Kivu province, UNHCR protection officials reported that more than 90,000 people in the Rutshuru and Masisi areas were forced to leave their homes in the first weeks of October. Displaced families urgently need food, clean water and shelter, but humanitarian access to affected populations is severely limited due to ongoing conflict.
South Kivu province, on the edge of the main conflict, has become home to 260,000 internally displaced people. Conservation monitoring has revealed a dramatic deterioration in the conservation environment in the province. In September alone, 8,243 human rights violations were reported, including killings, looting and rape.
Disease outbreaks, particularly cholera and measles, continue to devastate internally displaced people’s settlements in North Kivu, compounded by overcrowding and lack of drinking water. Of the millions of people in urgent need of tent shelter in the eastern provinces, only 115,000 have received it since June. Meanwhile, girls and boys in dozens of schools in North Kivu remain out of school as their classrooms are used to house displaced families.
Despite a joint declaration in June to increase emergency response, humanitarian organizations working in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have only received the resources needed to care for 2.7 million of the 5.5 million people in one situation of extreme distress. UNHCR needs $232.6 million this year to adequately respond to the needs of displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but has so far received only 40 percent of that amount.
Given the dire circumstances, displaced families who prefer to remain close to their family networks and livelihoods are forced to cross international borders. From January to August 2023, around 45,000 new refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo arrived in neighboring countries such as Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. In these countries, the need for accommodation and protection for new arrivals is urgent.
These neighboring asylum countries are also affected by a serious lack of funding. In Burundi, medical referrals have fallen to 70 percent, and in Rwanda, the provision of all types of health care beyond emergency referrals to secondary care is disrupted. UNHCR has also suspended all cash assistance programs for refugees in Rwanda and the World Food Program will reduce its cash assistance for food starting in November. In Tanzania, soap distribution in camps has been disrupted, dilapidated classrooms in schools cannot be repaired, and assistance to people with special needs, survivors of gender-based violence, and vulnerable children has been drastically reduced.
Uganda has experienced a decline in the availability and level of water, sanitation and hygiene services, reflecting the gap between the high number of arrivals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the resources available to expand services. Infrastructure in the settlements.
The 2023 Regional Refugee Response Plan for the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which brings together 69 humanitarian and development partners in collaboration with governments and UNHCR, is currently funded at just 16 percent of the required $605 million.
UNHCR urges the international community to redouble its efforts to achieve lasting peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to provide the necessary resources to alleviate the suffering of the displaced people in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Congolese seeking refuge in neighboring countries.
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