Millions face acute food insecurity in DRC, UN says

The DRC is home to the highest number of people in the world, who are in urgent need of food security assistance.

CAPE TOWN, April 7 (ANA) – About 27.3 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) face “acute” food insecurity, some seven million of whom are suffering “emergency” levels of acute hunger, United Nations agencies have warned.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said levels of hunger in DRC are at a “staggering” record high, now affecting one-in-three people, making the central African country home to the highest number of people in the world, who are in urgent need of food security assistance.

“For the first time ever we were able to analyse the vast majority of the population, and this has helped us to come closer to the true picture of the staggering scale of food insecurity in the DRC”, WFP’s DRC representative, Peter Musoko, said.

“This country should be able to feed its population and export a surplus. We cannot have children going to bed hungry and families skipping meals for an entire day”, he said.

Conflict remains a key cause of hunger, particularly in the central Kasais, along with the eastern provinces of Ituri, North and South Kivu and Tanganyika, the UN agencies said.

Other main factors compounding the crisis include a slump in the country’s economy as well as the socio-economic impact of Covid-19.

Despite the official end to the DRC’s civil war in 2003, militia violence has persisted there for decades, particularly in the eastern borderlands with Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.

“The recurring conflicts in eastern DRC and the suffering they bring remain of great concern,” FAO representative in DRC, Aristide Ongone Obame, said.

Upholding that social and political stability are “essential to strengthen food security and boost the resilience of vulnerable populations”, he said there was an urgent need to focus on growing more food and boosting livestock.

“The main agricultural season is around the corner and there is no time to waste,” the FAO official said.

WFP staff recounted stories of families surviving on taro, a root that grows wild, or cassava leaves boiled in water.

Moreover, some who returned to their village found their homes burnt to the ground and crops stolen.

The most affected are households headed up by women, as well as refugees, returnees, host families, the displaced and those affected by natural disasters, according to the UN agencies.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay