AA / Kinshasa / Pascal Mulegwa
The humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is catastrophically worsening, a senior UNICEF official warned following visiting two provinces troubled by violence from armed groups.
The regional director of the United Nations Children’s Fund for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier, said in a statement released by the UN agency on Monday that Congolese children face a “increasing danger in the east of the country, as armed conflicts, cholera and measles epidemics spread”.
“The scale of the crisis and the protection risks are alarming,” said Poirier who visited the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu.
“The violations of children’s rights are absolutely shocking” in this region, she added.
This situation “might quickly spiral out of control, particularly in overcrowded sites hosting nearly 200,000 internally displaced people in deplorable sanitary conditions,” she said.
According to the United Nations, 5.7 million people are displaced in the DRC, the overwhelming majority of whom in the east have fled raging fighting which has displaced at least 1.5 million people in 2022 , more than half of them children.
“The international community must act now to address this major protection crisis,” she said.
Children are indeed the main victims, she explained, indicating that some separated from their families risk being recruited by armed groups.
UNICEF has appealed for US$862.4 million to meet the “acute needs” of more than 8 million Congolese children.
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