The World Food Programme (WFP) is sounding a dire alarm about escalating food insecurity in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), calling for urgent international action to avert a humanitarian catastrophe amidst ongoing violence.
Eric Perdison, WFP Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, emphasized on Tuesday that the DRC remains “a forgotten crisis” despite the overwhelming scale of the humanitarian emergency. He called for intensified collaboration, stating, “We need all our partners to come together – locally, nationally, and internationally,” and stressed the need for stronger coordination between local authorities and humanitarian organizations.
Perdison’s plea follows a UN report in March that revealed a staggering 28 million people in the DRC are currently facing acute hunger – a record for the country. The situation is particularly critical in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, and Tanganyika, where over 10 million people are severely food insecure. “People are generally living on a knife-edge,” Perdison warned, citing a confluence of factors including escalating conflicts, collapsed livelihoods, soaring prices, disrupted markets, and severely limited access for humanitarian aid.
“I think the world is not responding to the reality of the DRC as it does to other emergencies,” he lamented, urging the international community to significantly step up its efforts to prevent a humanitarian collapse.
The displacement crisis has also reached unprecedented levels, with a “new historic record” of 7.8 million people uprooted across the country. Tens of thousands more have sought refuge in neighboring countries, placing immense pressure on already strained local resources.
Since the beginning of the year, WFP has provided vital food and nutrition assistance to over a million vulnerable Congolese, including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and children. However, the UN agency warns that its operations are critically endangered by a severe funding shortfall. To maintain its life-saving aid until October 2025, WFP requires an additional $433 million. Without these crucial contributions, the organization faces the grim prospect of being forced “to suspend food assistance to about half of the people it currently assists” in the coming weeks.
ODL/te/fss/abj/APA