DR Congo faces catastrophic health, humanitarian crisis

GENEVA — The World Health Organization warns that millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo are facing a health and humanitarian crisis because of escalating conflict and violence, mainly in the eastern part of the country in recent months.

The agency said the surge in violence by armed groups, principally Rwandan-backed M23 Tutsi-led rebels, an accusation denied by the Rwandan government, is leading to “mass displacement, widespread disease, gender-based violence and severe mental trauma.”

Dr. Adelheid Marschang, a WHO senior emergency officer, told journalists in Geneva Friday, “The DRC now has the highest number of people in need of humanitarian aid in the entire world, with 25.4 million affected.”

She said the DRC “remains one of the most underfunded crises,” which hampers the ability of people to receive the relief supplies and care needed to protect them from infectious diseases, hunger, and sexual and gender-based violence.

The United Nations’ $2.6 billion Humanitarian Response Plan, which aims to assist 8.7 million people in the DRC in 2024, is only 16% funded. Marschang said the WHO has received just $6.3 million of the $30 million it requires, at a minimum, until the end of the year “as the situation is expected to get worse.”

“Mass movements of people overwhelm water and sanitation systems and bring an additional burden on the population’s scarce resources,” she said. “As a result, people are facing outbreaks of cholera, measles, meningitis, mpox and plague, all exacerbated by severe flooding and landslides affecting some parts of the country.”

In the first half of this year, the WHO has reported more than 20,000 cases of cholera, including 274 deaths, most in North Kivu province, and 65,415 cases of measles, including 1,523 deaths.

“The actual numbers are likely to be higher due to limited disease surveillance and data reporting,” Marschang said.

She said armed conflict and mass displacement, compounded by widespread floods, were driving hunger and malnutrition to new heights, “by forcing families to leave their farms, leave their crops, leave everything they have to move wherever it is safe.”

The latest IPC Chronic Food Insecurity report finds that about 40% of the DRC’s population — 40.8 million people — “face serious food shortages, with 15.7 million facing severe food insecurity and higher risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases.”

Marschang said 1 million children out of 6.9 million are malnourished and at risk of becoming severely acutely malnourished if they do not receive specialized therapeutic treatment.

She explained that children with this condition have a weakened immune system, which makes them susceptible to deadly infectious diseases. Severe acute malnutrition also has serious cognitive consequences for children “harming their prospects in life.”

During a media briefing earlier this week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, warned of the global health threat posed by mpox, with 26 countries reporting nearly 98,000 cases to the WHO.

Noting that the DRC was in the crosshairs of a growing epidemic, he said, “The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shows no sign of slowing, with more than 11,000 cases reported this year, and 445 deaths, with children the most affected.”

Mpox, a viral disease, spreads through close contact with an infected person through contaminated materials, or with infected animals. Last month, scientists warned of a dangerous new strain of mpox in South Kivu, which could spread widely in overcrowded camps in and around Goma.

“It is a reason for concern,” Marschang said, adding that two camps in North Kivu province are infected with the virus.

“If we consider that we have military activities around those camps and some camps were actually targeted this year, I think it illustrates the increasing risk for this disease to spread and also the difficulties of containing it if security is not addressed,” she said.

The U.N. peacekeeping force MONUSCO began winding down its operations in South Kivu in January. Marschang warned that “could create a security vacuum.”

“This could throw us further into a situation of increasing numbers of displaced, of victims, of violence,” she said, “with the whole vicious cycle just continuing.”