Internally displaced Congolese children are seen in Kaniki-Kapangu village near Mwene Ditu in Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 15, 2018. Picture taken March 15, 2018. (Thomas Mukoya/REUTERS)

Humanitarian agencies draw attention to DR Congo’s forgotten conflict in Kasai

It’s one of the least known stories in one of the world’s most underreported conflicts.

Yet thousands of people have been killed and about 1.5 million people, most of them women and children, have been displaced over the last two years by the conflict in the Kasai region of the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The United Nations has been warning for months that flaring political and ethnic tensions in the Kasai region pose a grave risk to civilians.

“Tensions remain high between different ethnic groups, threatening to plunge the region into new violence,” UNHCR spokesperson Aikaterini Kitidi told reporters in Geneva in March.

Rachel Logel Carmichael, head of humanitarian affairs at Save the Children Canada, said the charity is particularly concerned by the impact of the conflict on children.

“We have seen an enormous number of children who have been separated from their families,” Logel Carmichael said in a phone interview from the Kasai Oriental region of the DRC. “We have also identified over 1,400 cases of sexual violence in the last several years and the majority of those cases are children.”

(click to listen to the full interview with Rachel Logel Carmichael)

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Projects for victims of conflict

Congolese children used in armed conflicts and former child soldiers receive psycho-social support at the Centre for Orientation and Transit (COT) for Children associated with militias in Mbuji Mayi, Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 14, 2018. Picture taken March 14, 2018. (Thomas Mukoya /REUTERS)

Logel Carmichael, who is visiting projects funded by Save the Children Canada in the Kasai region, said over the last several days she had a unique opportunity to speak with some of the children who have experienced unimaginable violence.

“For example, yesterday I had an opportunity to meet with a boy who had been abducted by the militia and forced to live and fight with them for a three-month period,” Logel Carmichael said.

The boy, whose identity cannot be revealed for security reasons, explained in detail how he was abducted from his village and talked about some of the rituals and indoctrination the abductees were subjected to, Logel Carmichael said.

The rookie child-soldiers were told to eat certain animal skins or had their skins tattooed to protect them from enemy bullets, the boy said.

Rachel Logel Carmichael (right), participates in a meeting with a former child soldier and his grandmother in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (Photo courtesy of Save the Children)

The boy was able to escape the militia that kidnapped him during a firefight and hide in the bush for some time until he found his grandmother’s family, Logel Carmichael said.

“He has been very traumatised by the experience he’s had,” she said.

Save the Children Canada funds several programs that focus on children who have been separated from their families during their displacement and children who had suffered from sexual violence, Logel Carmichael said.

“The main support that we provide to them relates to psychological support as means to help them address some of those traumatic experiences,” Logel Carmichael said.

The funding for these programs comes from the government of Canada and the Humanitarian Coalition, an umbrella group of Canadian humanitarian groups, she said.

Unending series of crises

Internally displaced Congolese women carry their belongings as they walk to the market in Kaniki-Kapangu village near Mwene Ditu in Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 15, 2018. Picture taken March 15, 2018. (Thomas Mukoya/REUTERS)

The conflict in Kasai is part of a much larger crisis that has gripped the DRC over the last 25 years.

Crises in Kasai and the DRC’s restive eastern provinces have been aggravated by President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down at the end of his elected mandate in 2016 with the constitutional void sparking deadly street protests and fears the country could slide back into an all-out civil war.

Years of violence by armed groups vying for control of Congo’s rich natural resources – along with ethnic strife in the country’s restive east, and political and ethnic instability – has created massive food insecurity, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

More than two million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition in the DRC and 13 million people require assistance there urgently – double the number of those in need last year, according to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock.

Ntumbabu Kalubi, 4, an internally displaced and severely acute malnourished child waits to receive medical attention at the Tshiamala general referral hospital of Mwene Ditu in Kasai Oriental Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, March 15, 2018. Picture taken March 15, 2018. (Thomas Mukoya/REUTERS)

The UN estimates total needs for the DRC for this year at $1.7 billion ­– nearly four times more than the amount secured last year.

However, at the donor conference for the DRC crisis in Geneva in April the international community pledged only about $500 million.

An additional $500 million is needed to support 807,000 Congolese refugees in neighbouring countries and more than 540,000 refugees from other countries who are in DRC.

During the conference, Jean-Philippe Chauzy, the DRC Chief of Mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), spoke of the need to strengthen international support for the people of the DRC.

“Confronted with rising intercommunal tensions, political instability and an increasingly insecure environment, the international humanitarian community needs to strengthen its support and commitment to the Congolese people,” said Chauzy. “We simply cannot ignore the speed, and magnitude of [this] crisis.”

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