DR Congo crisis leaves mothers with newborns fleeing to Burundi

“Over 63,000 people now have crossed into the country, Burundi, fleeing atrocities, deadly conflict in parts of eastern DR Congo,” said Faith Kasina, UNHCR Regional Spokesperson for East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes.

Amid the largest influx of refugees Burundi has seen in decades because of the hostilities in eastern DRC’s mineral-rich region, the UNHCR official issued an urgent appeal for immediate and sustained humanitarian funding to meet growing needs among the new arrivals. “This country, despite its best efforts, was not prepared for this emergency,” Ms. Kasina noted.

The alert comes just days since UNCHR warned that sexual violence and human rights abuses remain rampant near the frontlines in DRC, along with looting and destruction of homes and businesses.

Aid response ‘buckling’

To assist the new arrivals, UNCHR and partners are registering them in Rugombo before facilitating their onward passage to refugee sites far from the border. “But without more or without sustained funding…the aid response is literally buckling,” she warned.

At least 45,000 refugees have crammed into a stadium in Rugombo. “Conditions are extremely harsh…there are at least 45,000 people still sheltering in the stadium. The stadium is literally bursting at the seams.”

Testimonies from many of those fleeing grave rights violations in eastern DRC linked to the M23 advance have continued to highlight the seriousness of the ongoing emergency.

DR Congo rape alert

On 4 March, UNHCR warned that 895 cases of rape were reported to humanitarians in the last two weeks of February alone – an average of more than 60 a day.

One new mother “told me she gave birth three days before she had to flee and she had to cross the Rusizi river with her newborn baby in her arms and four more by her side,” Ms. Kasina said. “She was seeing people’s property and people’s luggage go down the river and she was scared for her life.”

Another DRC victim uprooted by the conflict described how she had already fled to Rugombo in Burundi as a teenager – “Now she’s forced back in the almost exact same spot now with six children…it’s just as an unending cycle of displacement.”

Highlighting the high number of children separated from their parents, UNHCR has set up a protection desk because “they have no point of contact and therefore these protection desks are useful in terms of trying to identify them, trying to connect them or reunite them with close family members”, the UNHCR official explained.

There are over one million Congolese refugees across Africa, mainly in neighbouring countries. Uganda hosts more than half of that total, while Burundi has seen most new arrivals since January’s flash M23 offensive.

Prior to the current crisis, some 6.7 million people were internally displaced within the DRC.