Inter-ethnic violence in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has forced over 300,000 people to flee their homes in the past two weeks, a spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), Babar Baloch has said.
Since early this month, a breakout of violence in DRC’s unstable Ituri Province has seen several attacks involving the Hema and Lendu groups. Last week, local authorities said at least 50 people had died in a matter of days, while other sources put the death toll from the crisis at more than 70. Baloch told journalists in Geneva that the “escalation could engulf large parts of the province”.
The cause of the latest outbreak is not clear, but it reportedly occurred in a region where tens of thousands died in clashes between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups from 1999 to 2003. Also, some 350,000 people were displaced in late 2017 and early 2018 after attacks between the two communities, but Baloch claimed that the situation had calmed since that period.
The UN refugee agency also expressed deep concern over the escalating crisis. “UNHCR fears this escalation could engulf large parts of the province … We are gravely concerned for the safety of civilians after receiving reports of killings, kidnappings, maiming and sexual violence being unleashed against people,” Baloch said.
So far, massive displacement have been reported in three of Ituri’s five administrative territories and the agency spokesman cited reports that both communities were “forming self-defence groups and being involved in revenge killings.”
According to the UN, most of the displaced persons sought shelter within host communities but some 30,000 arrived at existing displacement sites where conditions were already grave.
Meanwhile, the Governor of Ituri, Jean Bamanisa Saidi, put the potential number of displaced persons as high as 400,000. “We are overwhelmed with this surge in displacement,” Saidi told AFP, while he called for safety for the displaced and a stop to the violence.
The UNHCR and its partners are working with the authorities to better understand needs on the ground, said Baloch, but it was clear that many of the displaced urgently required shelter, basic household items and food.
Ituri is not the only part of DRC facing a crisis. The province, along with North Kivu which sit on DRC’s eastern border with Uganda, are also battling a major epidemic of Ebola that has killed over 1,400 since August 2018. The country is also faced with measles outbreak and yellow fever concerns, with an estimated 4.5 million people internally displaced.
