The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
DRC: Lives shattered by violence, displacement and hunger in ‘forgotten crisis’: WFP
UN humanitarians issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday to help millions of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where chronic violence and displacement continue to fuel a dramatic hunger crisis.
According to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), since March 2022 alone, 5.7 million people have been displaced in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri.
“The country is continental in size with acres of space, but millions of people have no choice but to live in very overcrowded and squalid camps,” or with already overburdened host families, WFP spokesperson for southern Africa, Tomson Phiri, told journalists in Geneva.
Today, as a result of the lawlessness associated with some 120 non-state armed groups, the UN agency has struggled to deliver vital relief to vulnerable communities where negotiating access is “an ongoing challenge”.
“It takes WFP on a very good day, four days to deliver food assistance from Goma, which is the capital in the east, to a place called Beni, which is 241 kilometres away,” Mr. Phiri said. “But it is taking us between three to four months to do so today because of insecurity.”
Mr. Phiri who maintained that the humanitarian catastrophe was a “classic example” of a forgotten emergency, explained that displacement has driven food insecurity as people are driven off their land and left unable to grow food.
Latest projections indicate that 25.8 million people in the DRC will face acute food insecurity in 2023 – the highest number worldwide.
So many are going hungry despite the country’s natural wealth. Paradoxically, the DRC produces precious metals which supply the world’s most advanced technologies, the WFP spokesperson said.
In addition to surging violence in the east, today’s climate crisis continues to claim lives and livelihoods. At least 400 people died in disastrous flooding in South Kivu last month and 3,000 homes were destroyed, driving further displacement.
Now more than ever, host communities also face the risk of hunger, Mr. Phiri warned, as WFP ramps up assistance to reach 3.6 million people over the next six months.
So far this year, however, only 15 per cent of the $870 million required for the humanitarian response in the country has been sourced, Mr. Phiri noted.
“We need investment in all facets of life in the DRC: infrastructure, basic services, but most importantly, we need peace,” he insisted.
STORY: Eastern DRC Crisis - WFP
TRT: 1’58”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH, NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
RELEASE DATE: 20 June 2023
FORMAT: HYBRID PRESS BRIEFING
DATELINE: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: UN flag alley UN Geneva.
- Cutaway: wide shot, speakers behind podium at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Tomson Phiri, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson for southern Africa: “About 5.7 million people have been displaced since March 2022, in North Kivu, in South Kivu and in Ituri. 6.3 million people have fled their homes across the country, and that is the highest number of people who have been displaced in Africa. The country is continental in size with acres of space, but millions of people have no choice but to live in very overcrowded and squalid camps.”
- Cutaway: medium shot, cameraperson and journalists at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Tomson Phiri, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson for southern Africa: “DRC, as some of you may know, is a country of binary oppositions, a country that produces the most precious metal and making the latest technologies, has the highest number of food insecure people worldwide, approximately 25.8 million people will face acute food insecurity in 2023.”
- Cutaway: close lateral shot, attendees at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Tomson Phiri, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson for southern Africa: “It takes WFP on a very good day, four days to deliver food assistance from Goma, which is the capital in the east, to a place called Beni, which is 241 kilometres away. But it is taking us between three to four months to do so today because of insecurity.”
- Cutaway: close shot, camera at the press conference, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) Tomson Phiri, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesperson for southern Africa: “We need investment in all facets of life in DRC, be it infrastructure, looking at access to basic services. But most importantly, the country needs peace.”
- Various cutaways of speakers and journalists at the press conference, UN Geneva.
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA , UNHCR , WHO
The past two months of intensifying Israeli bombardment in Lebanon have been the “deadliest and most devastating” in decades as communities uprooted from the front line have continued to flee across the border to Syria, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
2
1
3
Edited News | UNOG
“State of Silence”: Diego Luna brings the fight to protect the press to the UN in Geneva
Mexican actor, producer and director Diego Luna has brought his fight to protect journalists all the way to the United Nations, in Geneva. Together with documentary director Santiago Masa, he is putting a spotlight on the silencing of investigative journalism in his country, and on the incredibly high price that many journalist have to pay in pursuit of truth.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
“Today marks the grim milestone of 1,000 days since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale armed attack on Ukraine. Our Office has verified that at least 12,162 civilians have been killed since 24 February 2022, among them 659 children. At least another 26,919 civilians have been injured,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurance told the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
With COP29 in Baku now in its second - and final - week, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk has reiterated his call for urgent human rights-based climate action.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNIFIL , UNICEF , WHO
Lebanon: Increased violence along Blue Line and ‘horrific new normal’ for children
In southern Lebanon, peacekeepers have witnessed “shocking” destruction of villages along the Blue Line and ever-deeper Israeli ground incursions, while the situation of children across the country is becoming increasingly desperate, the UN said on Tuesday.
2
1
2
Press Conferences , Edited News | UNRWA
The head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, confirmed on Monday that a large convoy of humanitarian aid was looted inside Gaza at the weekend, amid a near-total a breakdown in law and order and harassment of the agency’s staff by Israeli soldiers.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA
In the nearly 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thousands of civilians have been killed, the country’s energy infrastructure is on the brink and drones terrify communities on the front line, the UN’s top aid official in the country said on Friday.
2
1
2
Press Conferences , Edited News | OHCHR
Mexican actor, producer and director Diego Luna took a break from the big screen on Thursday to highlight the dangers faced by journalists in his country and beyond, condemning murders of reporters everywhere as “a scandal”.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNRWA
Gaza: ‘People are losing hope’ as aid access is refused to north, warns UNRWA
Besieged northern Gaza is a place of dead bodies lying in the streets and hospitals running out of blood packs – a situation that’s “nothing short of catastrophic”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Jeremy Laurence & Ajith Sunghay, Head of UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, on Gaza
1
1
1
Edited News | UNHCR
Sudan’s displaced have endured “unimaginable suffering” in their search for shelter from the country’s ongoing war, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.
1
1
1
Edited News | WHO
‘Exceptional achievement’: Humanitarians reach over 105,000 with polio vaccine in north Gaza
Despite ongoing attacks and access challenges, humanitarians have managed to inoculate over 105,000 children in north Gaza with the second and final dose of the oral polio vaccine, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.