UN, WHO raise alarm on DR Congo violence, Ebola threat

GENEVA

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday called for action to stem growing violence by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while the World Health Organization raised alarm over new Ebola outbreaks in the country.

UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said atrocities by armed groups have “become part of a systematic pattern to disrupt civilians’ lives, instill fear and create havoc.”

“In 2020, UNHCR partners registered a record of more than 2,000 civilians killed in the three eastern provinces – 1,240 in Ituri, 590 in North Kivu, and 261 in South Kivu,” he said at a briefing in Geneva.

“The majority of these attacks were attributed to armed groups. The killings and kidnappings have continued in North Kivu in 2021, where attacks have also been directed against displaced civilians.”

He cited a Jan. 24 attack as an example, in which an armed group killed two men and seriously injured six others in an incursion into a site for forcibly displaced people in North Kivu’s Masisi Territory.

“Attacks by armed groups are carried out on the suspicion of collaboration with other groups or the Congolese security forces. Civilians find themselves trapped in the middle of confrontations between different groups,” Baloch said.

“It is a sad situation of chaos and mayhem for civilians in this part of the DRC.”

The UNHCR and its partners have heard numerous testimonies from people who have survived this targeted violence, he said.

“Between December 2020 and January 2021, at least seven incursions by armed groups into five different sites have been reported in Masisi Territory,” Baloch added.

More than 88,000 displaced people reside in 22 sites supported by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Many others live in spontaneous sites, while some 90% are accommodated in host communities, he said.

Ebola threat

The WHO, meanwhile, confirmed that the DRC is currently facing two Ebola outbreaks.

“We have two ongoing Ebola outbreaks in the DRC. These are now the 12th and 13th outbreaks we've recorded,” said Margaret Harris, a spokesperson for the global health agency.

“Insecurity adds a much a higher level of complexity, and it certainly makes it much more difficult to do the work that's already difficult because you're in a geographically difficult location.”

WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus also discussed the Ebola threat in a webinar on Monday, saying that two of the four new patients found in the DRC have died.

In Guinea, authorities have declared an Ebola outbreak in the southeastern Goueke town, with three infections confirmed among six people who reported symptoms after attending a funeral in late January.

“As you remember, Guinea was one of the three countries affected by the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016, the largest Ebola outbreak on record,” Tedros said.

“The outbreaks in Guinea and the DRC are completely unrelated, but we face similar challenges in both.”