The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is scaling up to deliver life-saving help to more than 210,000 of the most vulnerable people displaced by recent violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the announcement. While some food supplies are already pre-positioned in the conflict area, WFP urgently needs $67 million to continue assistance for three months. An estimated 500,000 people have been forced from their homes since fighting erupted in South Kivu at the beginning of December, and basic services across the province are on the brink of collapse.
Health facilities have been looted, medicines are unavailable, and schools remain closed. Communities are facing extreme vulnerability, cut off from safe water, medical care and livelihoods. More than 391,000 children are out of school.
“This hunger crisis risks spiraling without urgent action,” said Cynthia Jones, WFP Country Director ad interim in the DRC. “Not only are those forced to flee in dire need but families who have provided shelter, already living at emergency levels of food insecurity, are sharing their last food with displaced neighbors—pushing all of them closer to utter desperation.” WFP aims to reach the most vulnerable displaced families and host communities in South Kivu Province with a survival package of cereals, pulses, vegetable oil, iodized salt and special nutrition to prevent malnutrition for young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women.
The violence has forced many to flee into neighboring countries too in search of food and shelter. In Burundi, WFP is supporting 71,000 new arrivals from DRC with hot meals in transit centers. In Rwanda, up to 1,000 recent arrivals have been supported with hot meals and nutrition assistance. Nutrition screening is being conducted, and WFP is distributing special nutritious foods to prevent malnutrition among new arrivals.
WFP urgently needs $67 million to assist the most vulnerable forced to flee in DRC and $12 million in Burundi. This latest crisis comes at a time when WFP operations in these countries are already severely underfunded. To keep operations running across all programs in all three countries for the next six months, WFP urgently needs $350 million in DRC, $39 million in Burundi and $17 million in Rwanda.
