UN rights chief alerts humanitarian crisis in east DR Congo

UN rights chief alerts humanitarian crisis in east DR Congo

The United Nations (UN) human rights chief on Wednesday called for international attention to the ongoing war in North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as he visited a camp for displaced people in Goma.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk visited an internally displaced camp on the outskirts of Goma, capital of North Kivu, where he met with victims displaced by attacks carried out by rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23).

“We must work extremely hard for peace to be achieved,” he said, stressing the need to work on the underlying causes of conflicts.

Turk spoke to displaced people in the camp during his visit, and said to the media: “We have to take this situation very seriously. We have a lot of conflicts in the world, and sometimes I have the impression that we forget the situation here. And I came here to bring the attention of the international community onto the tragedy that is happening here.”

An OCHA report released Tuesday stated that since the start of 2024, more than 738,000 people have been newly displaced in the DRC, bringing the total to around 7.2 million displaced people.

It specified that “women represent 51% of the displaced population”.

Turk is on an official visit to the DRC at the invitation of the Congolese government. He is due to meet with President Felix Tshisekedi and senior officials in the capital of Kinshasa.

Thousands of Congolese have been forced to flee their homes due to a conflict between the Congolese army and M23 rebels, leading to what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says is one of the worst displacement crises in the world.