DRC lurches into crisis

More than half a million people have fled ethnic violence in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo since last year. The area is "on the brink of a deadly disaster", warned the Norwegian Refugee Council on Wednesday.

Four years of clashes between militias representing the Luba ethnic group and Twa pygmies in Tanganyika province have killed hundreds of people and forced thousands to flee into neighbouring Zambia.

The conflict, which has intensified in recent months, is part of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the DRC.

Militia violence has spiked this year, fuelled in part by President Joseph Kabila's refusal to step down when his constitutional mandate expired last December.

"Tanganyika is on the brink of a deadly disaster," said Ulrika Blom, NRC's Congo country director. "It's a catastrophic cocktail about to blow up."

The UN declared the DRC a level three humanitarian emergency last month - the highest possible classification and on a par with Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Nearly four million Congolese are internally displaced.

The Norwegian aid agency said that over 80% of the people sheltering in displacement sites it visited over the past two weeks in Tanganyika did not have access to clean drinking water. The conflict in Tanganyika is driven by inequalities between Luba villagers and the Twa, a hunting and gathering people historically excluded from access to land and basic services.

Some 600,000 children were also on the brink of starvation in the central Kasai region, where a local insurrection has killed up to 5,00 people since August last year, said the World Food Programme.

Millions died during regional conflicts in eastern Congo between 1996 and 2003, most from hunger and disease. 

- Reuters