DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
OF CONGO CRISIS

Children are being caught up in heavy fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo amid the worst escalation of violence in the country in more than a decade. Renewed clashes between armed groups and government forces have left children killed, injured and forced to flee for their lives.

On Monday 27th January, fighting reached Goma, the DRC’s third-largest city, a critical co-ordination hub, and home to nearly 1.5 million children. As the fighting continues, children and families currently have no safe option to escape to or ways to access much-needed humanitarian assistance. Around 200,000 children are suspected to be directly impacted already. 

More than 800,000 people were already living in displacement camps in and around Goma before the latest escalation of violence, facing dire conditions without access to adequate shelter, food, sanitation or healthcare.

Hospitals are overwhelmed with children and families suffering gunshot wounds and other injuries. There is also concern this increase in violence could trigger the spread of deadly diseases in overcrowded displacement camps in a country already suffering cases of mpox, measles, cholera and ebola. 

The ongoing insecurity is also leaving families and children facing extreme hunger and malnutrition, without the basics to survive. Nearly 4.5 million children are facing or expected to face acute malnutrition by June.

This environment of chaos and insecurity is also putting children at risk of recruitment by armed forces, child labour, abductions, and sexual violence.  

Children in the DRC are already facing one of the world's worst humanitarian and food insecurity crises, with one in every four people in need of humanitarian support and has become the second largest internally displaced people’s crisis globally.

• 25.4 million people are food insecure, including, 13.2 million children – the highest number globally for an individual country.
• 7.8 million people are currently displaced, of which 4.2 million are children.  

The country is also suffering the impacts of the climate crisis with more frequent and severe weather causing droughts and flooding that are devastating crops and increasing the risk of disease outbreaks. This is all aggravating an already dire situation for a population that has been dealing with brutal conflict for nearly three decades.

Save the Children started working in the DRC in 1994. We are currently working with 13 local partners, as well as international partners and government authorities, to deliver critical health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education support to children and their families.

We’re operational in all three of the eastern provinces worst impacted by violence – North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri. While much of our work continues across these provinces, we have paused all operations in Goma to protect the safety and well-being of our staff. 

While all activities outside Goma are currently ongoing, Goma serves as a critical logistical and co-ordination hub for our operations across the country. Save the Children’s office in Goma was hit by an explosion, and the house of a Save the Children employee was struck with bullets. While thankfully no staff were injured in these attacks, our staff along with other members of the community remain at huge risk. We’re urgently calling for calm and a definitive end to fighting to ensure the safety of our staff as well as the communities they serve.

As soon as it is safe to do so, we stand ready to scale up our response to support the escalating needs of children and their families in Goma. We’re planning to scale up our work to respond to children’s health and nutrition needs and support families to access essential water, sanitation and hygiene facilities to help curb the spread of illnesses and disease.

In other part of the DRC we continue our life-saving work. We’re providing safe drinking water, treating sick children suffering from pneumonia, malaria, diarrhoea, and other illnesses, distributing food and, treating and screening children for malnutrition. Our community-led approach in the country has also allowed us to treat cases of malnutrition locally before life-threatening complications develop.

We’re providing child protection services, helping children access education and supporting survivors of gender-based violence and children formally associated with armed groups.

We have also been helping build communities’ resilience to food insecurity by encouraging sustainable farming and supporting farming families who have been uprooted from their homes to restart agricultural income-generating activities in their areas of displacement. 

Marie*, 10 and her younger brother Antho*, 1, live in Kasai with their auntie Riva*. Like many families across DRC, conflict, climate change and epidemics like Covid-19 and cholera have left them food insecure.  

They were unable to access nutritious food resulting in Antho* becoming severely malnourished.  

Save the Children set up a health centre in Antho’s village, where they trained the community workers to screen and treat Severe Acute Malnutrition.  

After assessing Antho, they were able to provide "Plumpy Nut", a high-energy, high-nutrient peanut paste. Maria* helps her younger brother by feeding him and she hopes he will make a full recovery soon.