Lives of 3 million displaced children are at risk in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, says report

New York:  In a new report, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that the lives and futures of more than 3 million displaced children including nearly half a million under the age of 5, are at risk in the Democratic Republic of the Congo “while the world is looking the other way”. 

The report says amid the unrelenting conflict of eastern DRC, children can be perpetrators of the violence as well as its victims. In the east of the country, a succession of brutal attacks by fighters using machetes and heavy weapons have forced whole communities to flee with only the barest of possessions. Entire families – including children – have been hacked to death. Health centres and schools have been ransacked, and whole villages set ablaze.

UNICEF’s report, ‘Fear And Flight – An Uprooted Generation of Children at risk in Democratic Republic of Congo‘ recounts the testimony of children who have been recruited as militia fighters, subjected to sexual assault, and suffered other grave violations of their rights.  They say that violations against children have increased by 16 per cent in the first half of 2020, compared to the previous year.  The agency is calling for renewed solidarity with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  UNICEF’s 2021 humanitarian appeal for $384 million is currently only 11 per cent funded.

We reproduce one such testimony published in the report: “The militia descended on Sami’s village at night, bringing mayhem and bloodshed under cover of darkness. The terrified inhabitants managed to flee into the surrounding fields. For many however, there was to be no escape. “They caught a young boy and forced him to show them where people were hiding,” recalled 14-year-old Sami. “They caught me and my family. I watched them kill my family on the spot and then they attacked me with a machete.” Somehow, Sami managed to hide, despite a severe injury to his right leg. He was later found by UN peacekeepers who took him to hospital where his leg was amputated.”

The report mentions that in the violence-wracked eastern region of the country, attacks like that of August 2020, near the town of Boga, in Ituri province, have become a brutal norm. 

According to official UN data , 91 children were confirmed killed in Ituri province alone as a result of violence between January and August 2020, but added that the actual number was “certainly much higher”. Violence against girls and women is rampant, and largely responsible for making the DRC the world’s biggest sexual and gender-based protection crisis.

Besides, in Ituri alone, an estimated 400 children were recruited into armed groups during the first half of 2020. Child recruitment is one of six grave violations of children’s rights that are systematically recorded and monitored by the UN. In DRC overall, there was a 16 per cent rise in violations against children in January to June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

“Those who avoid recruitment by militias face other major risks, including sexual or gender-based violence,” the report says.

The factors behind the conflict are numerous and complex,  the report says. Disputes over land and resources combined with deep-rooted ethnic animosities, a militarized informal economy, the ready availability of arms, and weak governance have produced a surge in violence during the last three years. The perpetrators use heavy weaponry as well as machetes and knives. Entire families are hacked to death, including children.UN figures show that the scale of the displacement is huge. There are currently 5.2 million displaced people in the DRC, more than in any country except Syria. Fifty per cent have been displaced in the last twelve months.  

Displaced families live in crowded settlements that lack safe water, health care and other basic services. Others are accommodated by impoverished local communities. In the most violence-afflicted provinces of Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tanganyika, more than 8 million people are acutely food insecure – almost one third of the total in the entire country.

The report revealed that amid the turmoil of mass civilian displacements, children could easily become separated from their families and said that between January and June 2020, UNICEF had helped 365 children previously associated with armed forces and militant groups trace their families, reintegrate within the community and receive psychosocial support.

– global bihari bureau