{"id":53773,"date":"2025-03-04T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=53773"},"modified":"2025-03-04T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T20:00:00","slug":"almost-80000-flee-dr-congo-amid-fighting-sexual-violence-unhcr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=53773","title":{"rendered":"Almost 80,000 flee DR Congo amid fighting, sexual violence: UNHCR"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cNear the frontlines, sexual violence and human rights abuses remain rampant, as is the looting and destruction of civilian homes and businesses,\u201d said Patrick Eba, Deputy Director of UNHCR\u2019s Division of International Protection.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Geneva, Mr. Eba told journalists that that North and South Kivu provinces remain unstable, with \u201chundreds of thousands of people on the move\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Close to 80,000 people have fled armed clashes between Congolese Government forces and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels into neighbouring countries and some 61,000 have arrived in Burundi since January, Mr. Eba stressed.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>60 rape victims a day<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A staggering 895 cases of rape were reported to humanitarian actors in the last two weeks of February alone, the UN refugee agency official continued &#8211; an average of more than 60 a day.<\/p>\n<p>The UNHCR official highlighted other risks faced by civilians, including the dangers posed by explosive remnants of war to children and farmers trying to tend their fields. On Monday, the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office (OCHA) reported that armed men had raided at least two hospitals in North Kivu\u2019s capital Goma, abducting dozens of patients.<\/p>\n<p>The fighting has also impeded humanitarian access to people on the move. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has had to pause its aid operations in conflict-affected areas but was resuming emergency food assistance \u201cin some parts of North Kivu\u201d according to a post on social media platform X on Tuesday morning, aiming to reach over 210,000 people.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>M23 forced evictions<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Inside North and South Kivu, \u201csignificant\u201d population movements have continued, in line with reported M23 orders issued to internally displaced people (IDPs) to leave the camps around Goma, UNHCR\u2019s Mr. Eba said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, only around 17,000 people are left residing in IDP sites, schools and churches around Goma, while an estimated 414,000 of their neighbours have been on the move for the past four weeks, encouraged by the de facto authorities to return to their villages of origin,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>Given the widespread insecurity in eastern DRC, \u201cmany more\u201d people may need to cross borders in search of safety, Mr. Eba warned.<\/p>\n<p>UNHCR\u2019s position regarding returns to the area is that \u201cCongolese nationals fleeing the conflict, as well as those who are outside the country, who originate from the areas affected by the conflict, may need refugee protection under international and regional legal frameworks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The UNHCR official emphasized the importance of \u201cinformed decision-making\u201d for any voluntary returns to conflict-affected areas.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Exempt from funding freeze<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Asked about the impact of the United States\u2019 humanitarian funding freeze on operations in the country, UNHCR spokesperson Eujin Byun confirmed that the agency had received a waiver lifting the 90-day suspension for \u201ca few emergency countries, including DRC\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Assistance for the current crisis that was spawned by a decades-long conflict in the mineral-rich region had \u201calways been underfunded\u201d, she said, expressing hope that UNHCR will be able to \u201ccontinue to support this emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s flash M23 offensive. Prior to the current crisis, some 6.7 million people were internally displaced within the DRC.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/feed\/view\/en\/story\/2025\/03\/1160746\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNear the frontlines, sexual violence and human rights abuses remain rampant, as is the looting and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[482,391,1063,1351,2715,478],"class_list":["post-53773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","tag-congo","tag-fighting","tag-flee","tag-sexual","tag-unhcr","tag-violence"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.0 (Yoast SEO v28.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Almost 80,000 flee DR Congo amid fighting, sexual violence: UNHCR - 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