About 122,000 people, including nearly 65,000 children, were displaced in one day due to fighting in late January between the Army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the rebel group March 23 Movement (M23) in North Kivu province (east), Save the Children has warned.
The non-governmental organization has indicated that it is estimated that more than half of those displaced by the fighting between January 24 and 25 in the town of Kitshanga are children and has shown its «deep concern» that they are in a situation of «incredible vulnerability» to abuse.
«Violent clashes and attacks against civilians, including children, must stop. We are witnessing a considerable escalation in the conflict between the armed group M23 and the Congolese Armed Forces, which continues to cause massive population displacement,» said the head of the NGO in DRC, Amavi Akpamagbo.
«We are also seeing violent attacks by other groups that are killing and maiming civilians, including children, in an extremely violent manner,» he lamented, before calling for these incidents «to be investigated.» «Those responsible need to be held accountable for the violence and killing of children and other civilians,» he stressed.
The United Nations recently highlighted that more than 200 civilians have been killed by armed groups over the past six weeks in Ituri province (east), with 2,000 homes destroyed and 80 schools closed or destroyed.
«The humanitarian situation is tough in DRC. Most of the displaced people are living in precarious conditions,» said Akpamagbo. There are about 5.5 million displaced people in the country, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
In this sense, Akpamagbo detailed that many of these people «live in schools and stadiums, while others are hosted by families in places where there is no drinking water or food». «Displaced children are incredibly vulnerable. Unaccompanied or abandoned children, without family, face a higher risk of abuse,» he warned.
UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba denounced in late January that the situation for children in the eastern provinces of DRC has deteriorated «drastically» in recent months, urging «those responsible for atrocities» to be held accountable.
In this context of violence, at least seven people were killed on Wednesday in an attack perpetrated by suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group, linked to Islamic State, in Ituri province (east), according to civil society sources.
The secretary of the civil society in Walese Vonkuntu, Dieudonné Balangatyi, has indicated in declarations granted to the Congolese news portal 7sur7 that the massacre took place in the village of Idohu, located ten kilometers from the locality of Komanda.
The attack was carried out a day after the death of eight people in two assaults blamed on the ADF in two Ituri localities, bringing to 30 the total number of civilians killed by the group in the last four days, according to local media.
The ADF, a Ugandan group created in the 1990s, has been blamed for the killing of hundreds of civilians in this part of the country. The group underwent a split in 2019 after Musa Baluku — sanctioned by the United Nations and the United States — swore allegiance to the jihadist group, under whose banner it has been operating ever since.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
