Looming humanitarian crisis in Katanga - WFP

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis in the northern part of the DRC’s Katanga province. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the UN food agency said desperate people were arriving in the area in search of help after years of isolation due to the conflict. “As aid workers gain access to cut-off areas also in North and South Kivu, WFP is prepared to find populations in a similarly grave condition as those seen in northern Katanga,” the statement said. “We estimate that tens of thousands of people who have been repeatedly displaced by insecurity or have been trapped deep in the bush by armed militias, are extremely hungry and malnourished, while hundreds of thousands more are need of food aid,” said Claude Jibidar, WFP Coordinator for Eastern DRC, who has just visited Katanga. WFP said it wanted to urgently deliver some 650 mt of food into areas of northern Katanga which could only be reached by air. Barges are currently pre-positioning the necessary food stocks into Kalemie, from where it will be delivered. “Although humanitarian relief has started to trickle in to a handful of towns in northern Katanga like Manono, widespread insecurity and decimated roads are major obstacles to feeding thousands of more people in dire need,” Jibidar said. A recent assessment mission to Kiambi, another town in northern Katanga, revealed “unacceptably high” malnutrition rates. “There is a direct correlation between these alarming levels of malnutrition and the multi-layered war which has rendered hundreds of thousands of people without the ability to survive,” Jibidar said. He described the situation as shocking in a region that used to be the DRC’s breadbasket. The food situation for thousands more people in North and South Kivu, such as Shabunda, Lulingu and Kasika, remained precarious and urgent assistance was needed, pending safe access, WFP added. “People are reported to be hiding in the forests, from where some slowly emerge, malnourished and almost naked,” it said.