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. Since the start of 2025, the longstanding instability and insecurity in eastern DRC has escalated as the M23 rebel group stepped up fighting and seized large territory in North and South Kivu provinces.
The ongoing political instability and armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, DRC) have devastated food production and distribution systems, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the non-governmental organization Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned today that extreme levels of violence, hunger, and displacement receive “scant funding, media apathy, and neglect”, as recent months have brought a dramatic deterioration in the situation in the eastern part of the country.
