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An aircraft carrying 14 mt of humanitarian aid consisting of food and non-food items as well as medicine left Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), on Friday, bound for the northeastern city of Bunia.
Recent fighting in Bunia resulted in the deaths of more than 110 civilians, and has "seriously aggravated" an already difficult humanitarian situation, with about 10,000 families now having been displaced, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Tuesday.
The aid consignment was donated by the international aid agency, MEMISA-Belgique, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the DRC Ministry of Health, while transport costs have been shared equally among UN agencies and MEMISA-Belgique. However, OCHA said on Friday that it was still trying to procure water purification tablets.
The latest round of fighting erupted on 6 August when ethnic Hema militias, supported by the Ugandan army and the Union des patriotes congolais - a dissident faction of the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie-Kisangani-Mouvement de liberation - seized control of most of Bunia and took charge of local government.
[A useful background document produced by Human Rights Watch on conflict in the northeastern DRC region can be found at:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/hemabckg.htm]
Bunia, with a population of about 300,000 people, is less than 50 km from the Ugandan border.
A relief operation that had begun on 25 July for some 4,000 families displaced by previous combat in the region had to be suspended due to the most recent fighting.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
