AFRICA/DR CONGO – “The crisis in North Kivu is not only being ignored, it is being tolerated,” says the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the DRC

AFRICA/DR CONGO – “The crisis in North Kivu is not only being ignored, it is being tolerated,” says the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the DRC

Kinshasa (Fides News Agency) – “6 humanitarian workers were killed and 11 kidnapped between January and June of this year, with more than 200 incidents directly targeting humanitarian workers in the field,” said Bruno Lemarquis, Deputy Special Representative of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) – and UN Coordinator for the DRC – in his speech on the situation in North Kivu, in the east of the country. On the occasion of World Humanitarian Day, which falls today, August 19, Lemarquis recalled how the tragedy that has befallen this area of ​​the DRC – which has seen massacres, the forced displacement of millions of people, the killing of humanitarian personnel – is of little or no concern to the international community.
“Despite the gravity of the massacres and the suffering of the local population, the world is not sufficiently outraged by the catastrophic situation,” he said. “The absence of this collective outrage, this tolerance, calls into deep doubt our humanity and our ability to prevent and respond to the systematic violence that decimates innocent lives. That is why I refer to this crisis not only as one of the most neglected on earth, but also as one of the most tolerated.”
A crisis that continues to lead to the exodus of thousands of people. “In the first half of 2024, there were around 7.3 million displaced people in the DRC. That is 400,000 more displaced than in December 2023,” said the UN humanitarian coordinator.
According to Lemarquis, the most targeted victims are women and girls, even girl children, who are subjected to sexual abuse, as part of a bona fide criminal war strategy to force the local population to flee their villages (see Fides 29/10/2007). In this context, infectious diseases such as cholera, measles and monkeypox spread quickly and easily. Finally, according to Lemarquis, a single fact sums up the community’s indifference to the tragedy of the eastern Congolese: “the humanitarian response plans for 2024 are only 35% funded, which means that hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people are being left behind”.
In North Kivu, the main conflict is between the Congolese army, backed by a number of “self-defense” militias, and the M23 movement, which in turn is supported by nearby Rwanda. However, in this province, as in the neighboring countries of South Kivu and Ituri, hundreds of armed groups are active, including one that is jihadist in nature, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF, see Fides 24/6/2023). In addition to the conflicts for ethnic and tribal reasons, there are political and economic reasons that fuel the instability of eastern Congo. Starting with the exploitation of the territory’s vast natural resources – from wood to coltan, from gold to tin – on a part, to some extent, of all the warring parties (see Fides 26/1/2023 and Fides 1/2/2023). (LM) (Fides News Agency 19/8/2024)

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