22, Mar 2018 | CJP Team

Mark Lowcock, United Nations Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told the Security Council that conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has doubled the humanitarian requirements, and that a lack of funds is the “largest single impediment” to adequately tackling the issue. A recently released UN report has documented killings and other major human rights violations stemming from the use of excessive force by the country’s security and defence forces to tackle mass protests. Security services and defence forces killed at least 47 people between January 1, 2017 and January 31, 2018. In 2017, around 2.2 million were displaced in the DRC, taking the total number of internally displaced people to 4.5 million. Lowcock said that around 13 million require humanitarian aid, and that more than 4.6 million children are acutely malnourished. He said that $1.7 billion is required to fund humanitarian schemes in the DRC in 2018; this is almost four times the amount that was obtained in 2017.