The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) warns violence against children in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, DR Congo) has reached unprecedented levels. In a media briefing Friday, a UNICEF representative said there “are few worse places, if any, to be a child”, as more than 2.8 million girls and boys are bearing the brunt of the crisis in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu.
“Over the past year, this upsurge in violence and conflict in the east has resulted in the worst displacement crisis in Africa, and one of the worst globally. More than 2.8 million children are bearing the brunt of the crisis in the east. I am here today to, I hope, sound the alarm”, said Grant Leaity, UNICEF representative in the DR Congo.
“On a daily basis, children are being raped and killed. They are being abducted, recruited and used by armed groups – and we know the reports we have are only the tip of the iceberg.”
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the world’s highest number of UN-verified grave violations against children in armed conflict. The Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict, released earlier this year, revealed the grim reality faced by these children who were recruited or used, killed, or maimed, raped or victims of sexual violence, or abducted.
The children in DRC were those hardest hit for a second year in a row in 2022, with at least 2,420 children suffering from killing, maiming, abductions, and sexual violence. The report verified 3,377 grave violations against children in DR Congo, of which about 46 percent involved the recruitment of children – some as young as five - by armed forces or groups.
In the first three months of 2023, in North Kivu alone, more than 38,000 cases of sexual- and gender-based violence were reported, a 37 percent increase compared to the same time period in 2022, according to UNICEF.
“Said another way: in just one year, there have been 10,000 additional reports of sexual- and gender-based violence. Those are the ones reported. And in North Kivu alone”, Leaity said.
In addition to unprecedented levels of violence, the lives of children in eastern Congo are also threatened by epidemics and malnutrition. Around 1.2 million children under the age of five in the east of the country are at risk of acute malnutrition. Epidemic outbreaks are growing, with the DRC experiencing its worst cholera outbreak in more than five years and measles on the rise, with over 780,000 cases as of August.
“As the world looks away, we are failing the children of DRC”, the UNICEF representative said.
Leaity noted that UNICEF has the solutions to respond to all the humanitarian needs of children, provided the UN agency had the resources to do so.
“We have this year helped more than 30,000 children and their families get mental health counselling and more than 500 children who have been released from armed groups as they readjust to everyday life. We’ve supported in-patient care to thousands of malnourished children. And we’ve helped more than 800,000 people get enough clean water for drinking and domestic needs. But it remains palliative care”, he said.
To scale up its humanitarian response in eastern DR Congo, UNICEF requires US$400 million. However, its appeal has only received 1 percent additional funding since the emergency scale-up was announced in June this year. The UN agency desperately requires additional funding.
“The second thing we need is the political will to bring this conflict to an end. We call upon the government of DRC, African nations and the international community to work together to find a peaceful solution to this crisis – a solution that would allow millions of displaced families in eastern DRC to return to their homes”, Leaity said.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, and the situation in the country is one of the most neglected displacement crises globally. For decades, the country has endured multiple, overlapping emergencies driven mainly by conflict and forced displacement.
The UN estimates that 26.4 million require humanitarian assistance in the country this year. Among them are 15.4 million children.
The DRC already suffers the largest internal displacement crisis in Africa due to the ongoing violence. 7.5 million people in the country have been forced to flee their homes. Among them are 6.2 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 1.3 million refugees, that have sought safety in neighboring countries. In addition, DRC hosts some 500,000 refugees.
The majority of IDPs have fled their homes within the three eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. 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.
While in the whole country some 26 million people are experiencing food insecurity, at least 6.7 million people are facing high levels of acute food insecurity in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces. An estimated 2.8 million children in DR Congo are acutely malnourished.
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 continues to impact millions of vulnerable civilians.
Eastern DRC is home to multiple armed groups, including the rebel Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) force, the CODECO (Coopérative pour le développement du Congo) armed group, Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, and Mai-Mai militants.
The unrelenting cycle of violence has forced some 3.3 million people into displacement since March 2022, when clashes between armed groups – mainly rebels from the M23 - and government forces reignited. More than 1.5 million people have been forced to leave their homes in eastern DRC since January 2023.
On June 16, 2023, the world’s top relief officials announced a system-wide scale-up that will allow 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, and the spread of treatable diseases in the provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Since the decision, UN agencies have deployed teams to the eastern part of the country and secured some additional funding, to significantly increase their response.
In recent weeks, humanitarian organizations have stepped up their operations. However, aid agencies urgently need additional financial support to continue and strengthen their operations.
Just over a week ago, a delegation from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) visited the region to assess the situation. Following the mission with officials from several UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), a senior UN official said this week that the humanitarian situation has severely deteriorated in the east of the country, where sexual violence has become endemic.
"What we saw and heard was shocking, heartbreaking and sobering," Edem Wosornu, director of operations and advocacy at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters Tuesday.
"We have seen that in the past 18 months, the situation in eastern Congo has deteriorated to an alarming extent."
Wosornu said 8 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces, where scores of armed groups terrorize villages.
"This is not business as usual. This is an acute crisis on top of an already super-sized one," said Gabriella Waaijman, humanitarian director for Save the Children International, who was also part of the mission.
"And behind every one of these staggeringly large numbers are individuals enduring immense levels of suffering."
Wosornu said sexual violence is being perpetrated "on a massive and distressing scale."
Women and girls are at particular risk from armed men when they search for food, water and firewood in areas around camps for the displaced. They are also often forced to engage in what the UN calls "survival sex," including inside the camps for internally displaced people.
Wosornu said the stories she heard from victims and their families in eastern Congo were "absolutely horrific."
"Transactional sex at 20 cents is what is being perpetrated in the camps," she said, adding that the UN and its partners are working on prevention and offering psychosocial and medical support to women who have been raped. Unfortunately, funding for gender-based violence is often the least funded in emergencies, Wosornu said, at around 5 percent. While protection programs only receive about 10 percent of donor funds.
Aid operations in the DR Congo are faced with a huge funding shortfall. The United Nations has appealed for $2.3 billion but received only $764 million (34 percent) so far, with just a few months left in the year.
Some information for this report provided by VOA.
Further information
Full text: Press Briefing by the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, September 8, 2023
https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/bi-weekly-briefing/2023/09/press-briefing-united-nations-information-service-1
Full text: From Hope to Horror: Violence's Grip Tightens on DRC's Children, UNICEF, press briefing notes, released September 8, 2023
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/hope-horror-violences-grip-tightens-drcs-children