Report: 600,000 people have fled their homes in North Kivu DRC in the past six months

  A new report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has shown that approximately 600,000 people have been forced to flee their homes following clashes between armed groups and the government army in North Kivu, eastern DRC for only six months. In its statement to the media, the ICRC committee has said that 18 percent of the displaced people live in the suburbs of Goma in churches and schools. The ICRC has continued to say that 82 percent live in families that received them, and that most of them do not have any help. The Red Cross Committee has also said that the increase in insecurity is hampering the delivery of aid in the areas most affected by violence, and that in just six months about six hundred thousand people have fled their homes, which is the largest number ever witnessed in the world.

The movements of the M23 rebels have endangered the peace and security of the people in the eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Apart from Goma, the report has shown that the few remaining residents of the town of Oicha, with 360,000 inhabitants in the north of the city of Beni, are facing a lack of security. "This crisis is adding to the already fragile humanitarian situation in North Kivu province and other eastern provinces, such as Ituri and South Kivu," said OCHA. "Until now, only 20 percent of humanitarian needs in the DRC have been funded." The re-emergence of the M23 rebel group, also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army, is a major source of security concerns for North Kivu.