US $14.2 million needed for war displaced, says WFP

The UN World Food Programme regional director for Central Africa, Holdbrook Arthur, has said that US $14.2 million is needed to help some 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This amount equals 38 percent of the agency’s annual budget for the country.

Speaking at the end of a country evaluation mission conducted from 24-31 July, he added that his agency’s current budget had been exceeded due to foreseen events.

"We were expecting a rapid political development in Angola that would allow for a rapid return of Angolan refugees, with only 10,000 to remain in the DRC, but stagnation has not allowed this," he said. "Now the refugees are living in a precarious situation."

Some 60,000 Angolan refugees arrived in the country DRC in 2001, following fighting between Angolan government forces and UNITA rebels. Most of these refugees are still sheltered in difficult-to-access camps in Gindinga and Kindopolo, in the southwestern DRC province of Bas-Congo, along the Angolan border.

Meanwhile, in Zongo, northwestern DRC, humanitarian organisations are still caring for some 5,000 refugees from the neighbouring Central African Republic who fled hostilities last year in the capital, Bangui.

"In addition to the Angolan refugees who have not yet been repatriated, refugees from the Central African Republic arrived after we had established our budget for the year. We do not have sufficient resources for this," Arthur said.

In addition to refugee caseloads, the number of IDPs receiving aid from the World Food Programme has further taxed the UN agency's financial resources. However, humanitarian organisation are reaching some 160,000 IDPs in the DRC, but many others have remained unreachable due to continued insecurity and movement of populations in the four years since war erupted.

WFP estimates that 300,000 people have been displaced by war in the DRC.

An estimated 31,000 IDPs have been in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, for more than three years, while an estimated 32,000 IDPs - whose numbers have been increasing following the 14 May massacres in Kisangani - are in the northwestern DRC city of Mbandaka.