The humanitarian community and the Congolese government appealed on Tuesday, February 20, 2024, for $2.6 billion to respond to an alarming humanitarian crisis and fund the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Humanitarian Response Plan 2024.
These funds will be used to provide life-saving assistance and protection services to 8.7 million people whose survival depends largely on emergency aid.
Beyond the immediate crises that require urgent attention, there are also chronic needs and vulnerabilities in the DRC, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In the DRC, nearly 25.4 million people are food insecure this year, while acute malnutrition affects 8.4 million people, mainly children under 5, pregnant women and nursing mothers.
According to the UN, the humanitarian crisis in the DRC has reached new heights this year, due to the aggravation of certain conflicts, the emergence of new hotbeds of tension, and climatic events that have led to disasters. “Behind all these situations are men, women and children facing very high levels of vulnerability”, emphasized Bruno Lemarquis, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the DRC.
For over a year, the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken on alarming proportions. New outbreaks of violence, particularly in the east of the country, are forcing affected populations into repeated displacement.
he DRC currently has 6.7 million internally displaced people, in a context where the country is also facing severe flooding and an upsurge in measles and cholera epidemics, which have exacerbated the vulnerability of populations battered by more than three decades of armed conflict.
More than a million children are no longer attending school as a result of armed conflict. “The situation is truly dramatic. The international community needs to turn its attention to the Democratic Republic of Congo. With its unique environmental, mining and tourism potential, the Congo has a lot to offer the world. It needs to find peace again”, declared Modeste Mutinga Mutushayi, Minister of Social Affairs and Humanitarian Action.
Humaniterre
Source : un.org
