AFP, Geneva | Saturday
THE war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is heading for a humanitarian catastrophe, the World Food Program (WFP) has warned. Some 16 million people, or about one-third of the population, do not have enough to eat.
“Thousands of lives are at stake,” said WFP’s Geneva spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume, adding that humanitarian groups need better access to remote areas of the war-torn central African country.
“The entire socio-economic fabric of the country is ruined. Infrastructure is non-existent, areas that used to produce surplus food are no longer producing any, and the roads have been destroyed,” Berthiaume said.
“People don’t even have the clothes they need. They are hiding in the forests and don’t want to come to health clinics with no clothes on. When they are too sick they borrow clothes, but then they get there too late,” she said.
In the capital Kinshasa, she said, two million people face a critical lack of food.
At the start of the year about one million people were thought to be displaced in the country, where a civil war has drawn in at least five other African countries.
This figure jumped to 1.4 million in June and 1.8 million in September as a result of new fighting in the eastern Kivu region and the northern province of Equateur.
Aid agencies face overwhelming obstacles in trying to save lives among displaced DR Congolese as well as tens of thousands of refugees from Angola’s civil war, she said, noting that movement around the country is impeded by continuing fighting.
“It is extremely difficult to obtain permission from the authorities to travel in the country, even to stay the night,” she said.
The WFP is currently helping some 350000 people of the estimated 1.4 million people thought to be in need, Berthiaume said.
She warned that supplies often arrive late, adding that the next two months may see serious shortages.