UN mission says "urgent need" to assist 2.7 million IDPs

A UN inter-agency mission has said there is an "urgent need" to extend humanitarian support to an estimated 2.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday.

In January 2002, there were an estimated two million IDPs. Particularly hard hit were North Kivu and Orientale provinces, where 500,000 people have been displaced in the last six months.

Most of the IDPs had fled looting, kidnapping, killings, extortions and other human rights abuses. The mission confirmed a prevalence of child soldiers; instances of "disappearances" of wounded IDPs who report to hospital for treatment; victims of looting being forced to become looters themselves; and also rape of women being used as a strategy of war.

The mission cited as an example the region of Uvira in eastern DRC, where women's associations had recorded 5,000 cases of rape - an average of 40 a day - since October 2002. However, actual numbers are expected to be higher as unreported rapes are not accounted for.

"All these violations occur in an environment of total impunity," said Guillermo Bettocchi, senior IDP adviser at the OCHA Internal Displacement Unit in Geneva, who led the mission.

On a positive note, the joint mission also called for the launch of recovery and rehabilitation activities in pockets where peace and stability prevail, and which could contribute considerably to the consolidation of peace.

However, it lamented that of the US $202 million requested by aid agencies in the 2002 Consolidated Annual Appeal (CAP), only $94 million - or 46.2 percent - was received. It noted that of the $268 million sought in the CAP for 2003, no pledges had thus far been received.

The mission, composed of representatives of OCHA, World Food Programme, the UN Development Programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organisation, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Mission in the DRC and a donor, Italian Cooperation, visited the DRC from 26 January to 8 February 2003, to look into the challenges facing IDPs.

The complete report