Democratic Republic of the Congo

Overview

A complex emergency has persisted in DRC for more than 20 years. Population displacement is frequent and repeated, and mostly driven by armed clashes and intercommunal violence between foreign, self-defence, and other armed groups. More than five million people are internally displaced. The situation in the eastern provinces remains particularly volatile, and humanitarian needs have increased since January 2020, as displaced and local populations are faced with violence, food insecurity, floods and disease outbreaks. 1,315 extrajudicial killings by armed groups were reported in the first half of 2020, triple the number recorded during the same period last year.  Over 900,000 refugees from DRC live in African host countries. DRC also hosts about 528,000 refugees, mainly from Rwanda, Central African Republic, and South Sudan?

Some 21.8 million people, 33% of the analysed population, are in need of food security assistance for the July-December 2020 period. This is an increase from the 13.56 million in the January-June 2020 period (28% of the analysed population). The increase is mostly attributable to the secondary effects of COVID-19 government restrictions and the higher number of people assessed (from 48.1 million to 66.6 million). Projections for the January-June 2021 period predict that the situation will improve slightly and that the number of food insecure people will decrease to 19.6 million. ?

Since late March, least 586,000 people have been affected by flooding caused by heavy rains in the provinces of Haut-Lomami, Haut-Katanga, Maniema, and Tanganyika, and in the Baraka, Fizi, and Uvira territories of South Kivu province.? These floods occurred in areas where large parts of the population were already food insecure, placing an additional strain on vulnerable households.

DRC is currently facing an Ebola outbreak  in Equateur province as well as a nationwide measles epidemic. Health authorities are still monitoring the areas affected by the previous Ebola outbreak, which lasted from 1 August 2018 to 25 June 2020 in Ituri, Nord-Kivu and Sud-Kivu provinces.?

INFORM measures DRC’s risk of humanitarian crisis and disaster to be very high at 7.6/10. The risk of exposure to flood is 7.5/10 and the lack of coping capacity is at 8.0/10.?

Latest Developments

A humanitarian convoy was ambushed on 16 September in Lubero territory (Nord-Kivu). One aid worker was killed and one injured, and two were kidnapped until their rescue on 17 September. On 18 September, three humanitarians were abducted near Bunia (Ituri) and are still missing. Insecurity in eastern DRC affects humanitarian access to populations in need. ?

17/09/2020: 52 prisoners have died of starvation at Bunia prison (Ituri) between January-September 2020. The prison, which houses five times more inmates than its capacity, faces chronic food and medicines shortages. Food shortages across prisons in DRC are common as food is allocated based on their stated capacity and not actual occupancy rate (average of 432%). ?

ACAPS' team is daily monitoring the impact of COVID-19. Find more information related to the outbreak here.