Oxfam: International community ignoring Congo disaster

By Godfrey Olukya

ARU, Democratic Republic of Congo

International humanitarian NGO Oxfam has called out the international community for overlooking the largest displacement of 2017, in the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Nearly 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes in the first six months of 2017, due to a vicious conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet this latest disaster has so far attracted little international aid or attention,” Oxfam said in a statement late Thursday.

“The government and international community have been slow to respond, in part because of the security situation. Most of the affected people have received no external help,’’ it added.

It said that more people in the DRC have been driven from their homes in 2017 than in any other country, adding that the number of displaced this year is more than the combined total of Nigeria and South Sudan.

In fact, it noted, a total of 3.8 million people have been displaced, making it the largest displacement crisis in Africa, it said.

Fresh from a fact-finding mission in DRC’s embattled Kasai region, Mark Goldring, Oxfam's chief executive, expressed alarm at the humanitarian situation and the insufficient national and international responses.

Goldring said he visited villages where houses had been burned down just two weeks earlier. He met children who had been shot, women attacked, and schools and health centers ransacked.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless and hungry -- we need a massive aid effort to offer them hope. Of the major humanitarian crises only Afghanistan is currently getting receiving less aid than Congo," he said.

Chaos erupted in Kasai region last year when police killed Kamiuna Nsapu, the leader of a militia of the same name. Since then the militia has gone on rampages, attacking villages and killing civilians.