22 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has verified that the resumption of armed activities by the March 23 Movement (M23) militia group in the North Kivu province, in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has left 1.2 million newly displaced since March of last year.
The estimates were announced after a three-day visit by a UNHCR delegation to the city of Goma, the provincial capital, to assess the immediate needs of the population affected by fighting against the Congolese army, reports Radio Okapi.
With these new displaced persons there are already 6.2 million people who have had to flee violence in the country, either from the M23 or from other fearsome armed militias that operate in North Kivu and neighboring Ituri, such as the Cooperativa para el Desarrollo del Congo (CODECO) or the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The UNHCR representative in the country, Angel Dikonge Antagana, has lamented that the agency has not received even 20 percent of the approximately 230 million euros in aid that it has requested from international donors.
“These people live in a deplorable situation,” lamented the UNHCR representative about a crisis that has led to the declaration, by the Congolese government, of a state of emergency in the affected areas, so far without tangible results.
The M23 is made up mainly of Congolese Tutsi and operates mainly in North Kivu. Following a conflict between 2012 and 2013, the RDC and the group signed a peace agreement in December. In these combats, the DRC Army had the support of United Nations troops.
The group finished accelerating its new offensive in October 2022, intensified as of November, which caused a diplomatic crisis between the DRC and Rwanda over their role in the conflict.
Kigali accuses Kinshasa of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a rebel armed group founded and made up mainly of Hutus responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and has denounced discrimination and acts of hate against the Tutsi minority in the neighboring country.
