In a statement, he urged the warring parties to give aid agencies
access to the people in need. "If this does not happen we will see an
already critical situation turning drastically worse," he said.
More than 30,000 displaced left without aid
More than 30,000 people displaced by fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been cut off from aid because of ongoing insecurity, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said on Thursday.
Tens
of thousands of people were forced to flee Mpati in North Kivu province
after fighting erupted there at the end of March between government
forces and armed groups, the NRC said.
"There
are more than 30,000 people displaced all over the place without support
because we are for now unable to reach them because of the potential
risk," Mickael Amar, NRC's head of mission in Congo, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"This
is something common here in Congo, we are used to (stopping) activities
because of insecurity and we go back after 10 or 15 days, but 10 or 15
days for a displaced person without any support is a lot," he said in a phone interview from Congo.
Amar said that although NRC has not yet been able to assess the exact needs of the displaced, they lacked food and shelter.
In a statement, he urged the warring parties to give aid agencies access to the people in need. "If this does not happen we will see an already critical situation turning drastically worse," he said.
In
January, the United Nations said a surge in kidnappings and general
insecurity in North Kivu province in recent months had made delivering
life-saving humanitarian aid a "Herculean task".
Congo's
east has been plagued by instability since regional wars between 1996
and 2003 killed millions, most from hunger and disease. Dozens of armed
groups continue to prey on the local population and exploit the region's
rich mineral deposits.
Amar said that last week
unknown people entered an NRC compound in Mpati and stole some of their
assets, including phones and radio equipment.
"It shows that humanitarian access starts to be a bit complicated," he said.
"Today
we've been informed that shooting took place in the same area ... No
one has been injured because it was shooting in the sky (but) it creates
a lot of confusion."
In January, medical
charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) closed one of its projects in
Congo following a December attack on one of their convoys and abduction
of two of their staff.
Amar said NRC was trying to
negotiate with the Congolese government safe access to the displaced
people through other partners, including the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
إرسال تعليق