WFP: DRC is facing a 'humanitarian crisis' due to floods
The World Food Program (WFP) has announced that the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing a "humanitarian crisis" after being hit by major floods that affected approximately half a million people.
All around Lake Tanganyika, and the highlands of the Congo River basin, people have lost their homes, their farms and their lives, where WFP estimates 471,000 people have been affected and 1.1 million acres have been flooded, including 21,000 hectares of crop land.
The United Nations organization expresses its concern about the impact of the provision of health services as diseases affect some areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Considering also the violence in the states of South Kivu and Tanganyika, the organization has named the most affected areas as Haut-Lomami and Tanganyika which borders the neighboring countries of Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia.
At the same time, it is said that thousands of refugees in East African countries have been forced to move to the places where they had found refuge following the heavy rains that have caused floods that accompanied the disaster.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has mentioned that the affected refugees are those in Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia and Burundi.
Floods in Kenya and Tanzania have killed at least 350 people and that number is expected to increase as the rains continue to fall.
