Fighting in the Congo has displaced 3.7 million people. People are fleeing violence across five provinces known as the Greater Kasai region.
Rein Paulsen, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Head of Office of the Democratic Republic of Congo, talked about the severity of the situation, “What we have in the Kasais is a protection crisis of massive proportions and the first people that it impacts are the Congolese unfortunately themselves and they are the ones that are suffering displacement and also in terms of killings, unfortunately they are really the ones that are at the center of what’s taking place.”
Because of the war and the difficulty of getting aid in, there is also a crisis of disease and malnutrition.
Rein Paulsen detailed the other major issues.
“One of the key drivers for this acute level for malnutrition also relates to the overlap between epidemics and the health situation and what’s happening in the country. So last year in the DRC we had to face a cholera epidemic at scale, we had to face a measles epidemic with close to 30,000 proven cases in the former Katanga province. We had an outbreak of yellow fever that required the distribution of some 10.2 million doses of yellow fever vaccines” said Paulsen.
