Crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo Map
Source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

The country

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) is a country in central Sub-Saharan Africa. The country gained its independence from Belgium in 1960; its national capital is Kinshasa.  The DRC borders the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of Congo covers an area of 2,344,858 square kilometers. In 2025, the country has an estimated population of about 118 million people, making it the third most populous country in Africa after Nigeria and Ethiopia. The DR Congo is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world and at the same time one of the least developed countries.

The humanitarian situation

The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are suffering from one of the most complex and protracted humanitarian crises, with 21.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2025. At the same time, the DRC faces one of the world's most neglected displacement crises, with more than 8 million women, children, and men in the country forced to flee their homes. 

For decades, the DR Congo has endured multiple, overlapping crises, mainly driven by conflict and forced displacement, both of which are having devastating consequences.  More than a hundred years later, the horrific colonization of the country by the Belgian King Leopold II is still impacting the life in the DRC. Since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003, the central African country has experienced now two decades of lingering armed violence.

As decades of conflict and strife continue to plague the Democratic Republic of Congo, the humanitarian crisis in the region deepens. Millions, who have been internally displaced due to ongoing militia attacks and military operations, highlight the particularly tragic outcomes for women and children. Conflict has a profound impact of the lives of the Congolese people.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo suffers one of the largest internal displacement crises in the world – after Sudan – due to the ongoing violence. At least 8 million people in the country have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are 6.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), mainly in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, and more than 1.1 million refugees, that have sought safety in neighboring countries.

A resurgence of fighting in eastern DRC uprooted 3.8 million new IDPs in 2023, while an estimated 1.8 million IDPs returned during the same time span. In 2024, more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee violence perpetrated by a wide range of these armed groups. Women account for at least 50 percent of those displaced. More than 80 percent of displacement is due to armed conflict.

As of September 2024, most internally displaced persons (IDPs), about 5.5 million (80 percent), lived in the eastern provinces of North Kivu (2.44 million IDPs), Ituri (1.25 million), South Kivu (1.48 million), and Tanganyika (320,000). In addition to the millions of internally displaced persons, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is also hosting some 520,000 refugees from other countries, mainly from the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan.

The humanitarian situation in DR Congo continues to deteriorate, particularly in the east of the country, due to the volatile security situation. Since March 2022, more than 4 million people have been displaced from their homes in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, illustrating the country's ongoing fragility. As the conflict does not let up, people continue to be forced from their homes and the only shelter they can find is in makeshift camps and host communities. More than two-thirds of IDPs in the country - nearly 4.8 million people - live in host families. 

The conflict in eastern DRC has caused an interlinked crisis, affecting food insecurity, malnutrition, health, education, as well as access to clean water and shelter. 

In 2023, the humanitarian situation in the eastern provinces of the DR Congo reached devastating levels, as cyclical violence perpetrated by armed groups and subsequent displacement impacted millions of vulnerable civilians. Eastern DRC is home to multiple armed groups, including the rebel Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) force, the CODECO armed group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, and Zaire militants. 

On June 16, 2023, the world’s top relief officials announced a system-wide scale-up that allowed humanitarian organizations to increase their operations in eastern DRC following months of relentless violence, displacement and rising humanitarian needs. The scale-up focuses on the scarcity of food, protection from gender-based violence (GBV), and the spread of treatable diseases in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Since the decision, United Nations agencies have deployed teams to the eastern part of the country and secured additional funding, to significantly increase their response. 

In recent months, humanitarian organizations strengthened their operations. However, aid agencies need urgent financial support to continue and increase their response. The World Food Programme (WFP) greatly expanded its emergency operations in the eastern provinces - tripling the number of people it reached with food assistance from an average of 400,000 in May 2023 to an average of 1.3 million in March 2024. However, the UN agency does not have the resources to sustain this emergency response.

Ongoing conflict in the country fuels hunger. Between July and December 2024, some 25.6 million people in DRC were facing high levels of acute food insecurity (crisis levels or above). Among them were around 3.1 million people facing emergency levels of food insecurity (IPC Phase 4), characterized by large food gaps and high levels of acute malnutrition. 

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), between 14 and 15 million people across the DRC were likely to require food assistance between October and December 2024, mainly due to the combined effects of worsening conflict, seasonal flooding and economic instability.

The IPC projection for January to June 2025 indicates a situation where food insecurity rates remain high, with 25.5 million people estimated to experience high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phases 3 or worse), including around 3.3 million people who are facing emergency levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 4) and 22.2 million people who will likely be in IPC Phase 3.

The latest IPC Chronic Food Insecurity report finds that about 40 percent of the DRC’s population - 40.8 million people - face serious food shortages, with 15.7 million facing severe chronic food insecurity and higher risk of malnutrition and infectious diseases. In addition, widespread poverty is affecting over 60 percent of the population, who survive on less than $2.10 per day.

Between July 2024 and June 2025, nearly 4.5 million children aged 6 to 59 months are facing or expected to face acute malnutrition, including approximately 1.4 million cases of severe acute malnutrition (SAM)  and 3.1 million cases of moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). Some 3.7 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are facing or expected to face acute malnutrition over the same period.

The UN estimates that 21.2 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2025, a slight decrease compared to 2024. Among them are an estimated 12.4 million children. In the three eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, nearly 8 million women, men, and children are in need of humanitarian aid. In 2025, aid agencies in the DRC are requiring $2.54 billion to assist 11 million people.

According to the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), in 2025 the humanitarian community's efforts will focus on saving lives and alleviating the suffering of people affected by recurrent shocks related to conflict, natural disasters and epidemics. 

The humanitarian response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains significantly underfunded.

The 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for the DRC sought US$2.6 billion to provide urgently needed assistance. As of January 2025, the 2024 HRP was only 51 percent funded. In addition, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) launched the 2024 Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP) to provide protection and assistance to Congolese refugees in neighboring countries. The RRP required $668 million to support nearly 1 million refugees and 1 million host communities, but was only 43 percent funded (as of January 2025).

Despite lack of funding, operational and access challenges, humanitarian organizations provided assistance to an estimated 7.1 million people in 2024 out of 8.7 million targeted for relief aid.

The 2023 Humanitarian Response Plan for the Democratic Republic of the Congo called for $2.3 billion to provide life-saving assistance to millions of people. As of February 2024, the 2023 HRP was only 40 percent funded. The 2023 Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP) for the Democratic Republic of Congo required $549 million. As of February 2024, the 2023 RRP was only 26 percent covered by funding.

The country is also confronted with the effects of climate change, which have aggravated the impact of recurrent floods in many provinces of the DRC. The floods are exacerbating already high humanitarian needs, as the infrastructure is severely damaged and basic services are impaired. 

In December 2023, heavy rainfall caused the Congo River to surge to its highest levels since 1961. This triggered catastrophic flooding, which impacted 18 out of the country’s 26 provinces and affected more than 2 million people, including in the capital Kinshasa. Over 300 deaths were reported, more than 500,000 people were displaced due to the floods. In 2023, floods impacted overall a record 4.1 million people. From January to September 2024, over 1.1 million people were affected by flooding. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that millions of people in DR Congo are facing a health crisis as a result of escalating conflict and violence, particularly in the eastern part of the country. Mass displacement is overwhelming water and sanitation systems, putting additional strain on the population's scarce resources. As a consequence, people are facing outbreaks of cholera, measles, meningitis, mpox and plague, all exacerbated by severe flooding and landslides in some parts of the country.

The DRC is exposed to significant epidemics that increase the vulnerability of the population and put additional pressure on the already precarious health system. As of October 2024, suspected cholera cases had reached 27,000, while measles cases stood at 87,000.  Mpox cases had surged alarmingly, with 38,000 suspected cases and 1,000 deaths reported between January and October 2024. The real numbers are likely to be higher.

Mpox, a viral disease, spreads through close contact with an infected person, contaminated materials, or infected animals. Scientists have warned of a dangerous new strain of mpox in South Kivu that could spread widely in the overcrowded camps in and around Goma. The DR Congo is the epicenter of the epidemic, with 90 percent of all cases in Africa. Mpox cases are occurring in all provinces of the DRC, with multiple clade 2 outbreaks occurring simultaneously in endemic and non-endemic provinces.

Cross-border transmission from the war-torn eastern provinces of North and South Kivu into neighboring countries is accelerating, particularly into Burundi, but also into Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. On August 14, 2024, the WHO declared Mpox a global public health emergency of international concern after the DRC outbreak spread to at least 12 other countries in the region.

Democratic Republic of the Congo LocationThe security situation

For two decades, conflict has been raging in parts of the country.  Human rights violations are widespread, in particular cases of sexual and gender-based violence, with sexual violence being used as a weapon of war. Sporadic waves of fighting across many parts of the country, in particular eastern regions, face the DRC with a complex and challenging security situation.  

Presidential, legislative, and provincial elections were held in December 2018 and early 2019 across most of the country. In 2019 then, the country experienced the first transfer of power to an opposition candidate without significant violence or a coup since the DRC's independence. Opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi was announced the election winner on 10 January 2019 and inaugurated two weeks later. The next presidential, legislative, and provincial elections were held in December 2023.

After a disputed election in December, President Tshisekedi was sworn in on January 20, 2024, for his second five-year term. The Congolese president has promised to unite the Central African country and protect lives in the conflict-torn eastern provinces. 

While the security situation improved in some areas in 2021, armed conflict and natural disasters continue to cause significant displacement in the east of the country, particularly in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri where a state of siege was declared in April 2022 due to escalating attacks. North Kivu, Ituri, and South Kivu suffered between 2021 and 2023 from an escalation of targeted attacks by armed groups against civilians, many of whom have already been displaced due to conflict and violence.

Rebel groups have fought the government and each other in eastern Congo for decades, battling for political dominance and control of the region’s rich mines. One of the root causes of many of these conflicts is the exploitation of the DRC's natural resources. Much of the instability in the region is driven by illicit mining, regional rivalries, and a proxy war between DRC’s eastern neighbors Uganda and Rwanda. Despite efforts to achieve peace in eastern Congo, mistrust between leaders of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, remains a major obstacle. Neighboring Rwanda supports the M23 armed group and has reinforced its support for the M23 in 2024.

The worsening conflicts in eastern Congo have prompted countries in the region to broker two peace initiatives: the so-called Luanda Process and the Nairobi Process.

Since fighting between the Congolese army and the armed group Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) escalated in March 2022, millions of Congolese have had to flee their homes in the province of North Kivu. The fighting is concentrated in the territories of Rutshuru and Masisi. Most of the displaced people have fled to Nyiragongo territory, while thousands have sought refuge in Uganda and Rwanda. Since October 2023, violent clashes between members of the M23, the FARDC and coalitions of armed groups in North Kivu again intensified, forcing millions of people from areas controlled by the M23, to flee their homess, many more than once. 

While international attention is focused on the deteriorating situation in North Kivu province, the humanitarian situation in Ituri province is becoming increasingly critical. In Ituri, in parallel with intercommunal clashes between the CODECO and Zaire armed groups, the ADF armed group has intensified its attacks against the civilian population, resulting in numerous gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law. As of September 2024, approximately 1.25 million people were displaced in Ituri province.

Between December 2023 and March 19, 2024, 531 civilians were reportedly killed in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. The non-state armed groups Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and Coopérative pour le développement du Congo (CODECO) were responsible for most of the civilian killings, according to the UN.

Between October 1, 2023 and March 15, 2024, the UN Joint Human Rights Office documented 2,110 human rights violations and abuses throughout DR Congo, including summary executions and conflict-related sexual violence. Of these, 59 percent were committed by non-state armed groups. Nearly half of these rights violations were committed in the North Kivu province, where violence and tensions have reached boiling point.

UN human rights officials have documented 2,355 human rights violations documented between January and June 2024, affecting more than 6,300 people, representing a 15 percent increase in the number of people affected by human rights violations. Armed groups were found to be responsible for nearly 3 out of 4 documented violations.

While the DR Congo continues to experience violence perpetrated by more than 130 armed groups active in the eastern regions, the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) has operated in the regions since 1999 and is the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world. The mission has been authorized to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate to protect civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the Government of the DRC in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts.

However, UN peacekeepers are due to exit from the eastern provinces, as part of the Mission’s disengagement plan from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. MONUSCO will complete its withdrawal from the country by the end of 2025. There are growing concerns about what will happen to civilians after MONUSCO's full withdrawal from the eastern provinces, raising fears for the protection of civilians and the specter of a worsening humanitarian emergency.

Several fragile ceasefires have been in place. An initial two-week humanitarian ceasefire was announced on July 5, 2024, but was not fully respected. A second consecutive temporary humanitarian ceasefire between the warring parties was set to expire at midnight on August 3. Since August 4, 2024, the latest ceasefire between the governments of the DRC and Rwanda has been in effect in the east. The open-ended ceasefire in the eastern region of the country was announced by Angola on July 30. 

The situation in the east of the country has deteriorated in recent months, despite numerous military operations by the FARDC, often supported by MONUSCO, and the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (SAMIDRC). 

In 2025, the security situation in the east escalated despite the August 2024 ceasefire. On Jan. 2, 2025, the M23 launched a new offensive, capturing territory and displacing more than 500,000 people in North and South Kivu provinces in violation of the ceasefire agreement signed between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda. 

Rwanda stepped up its support for the M23 in 2024, and thousands of Rwandan troops are already fighting alongside the M23 in eastern DRC, according to a group of UN experts, raising fears of a full-scale war between the two East African neighbors.

On January 4, the M23 captured the town of Masisi in North Kivu and rapidly advanced. On January 21, the armed group took control of the town of Minova. On January 23, the M23 captured the town of Sake, about 25 kilometers from Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

At the end of January, the M23 had reportedly taken control of the airport and much of Goma. The region's largest city, which normally has a population of about 2 million, is currently home to some 3 million people, including 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) from other conflict areas. More than 1.5 million of these are estimated to be children.

Hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands injured in the latest fighting. The rebel group's capture of Goma and the deteriorating situation could have a devastating impact on the civilian population, further threatening civilian lives and leading to additional displacement. At least 13 international peacekeepers from MONUSCO and SAMIDRC have been killed as the M23 rebels have advanced.

Donations

Your donation for the Democratic Republic of the Congo emergency can help United Nations agencies, international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their local partners to rapidly provide water, food, medicine, shelter and other aid to the people who need it most.

Currently, there are only a few active appeals for the DR Congo Crisis. You may also consider making an unearmarked donation or a broader earmarked donation.

To find other organizations to which you can donate, visit: Humanitarian Crisis Relief, Refugees and IDPs, Children in Need, Hunger and Food Insecurity, Medical Humanitarian Aid, Vulnerable Groups, Faith-Based Humanitarian Organizations, and Human Rights Organizations.

Further information

Last updated: 30/01/2025

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