US to give DR Congo $414m in humanitarian aid

The US said on Wednesday it would provide nearly $414m (R7.60bn) in humanitarian assistance for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where more than 25-million people need such aid. This is nearly a quarter of the country's population.

US ambassador to the UN agencies for food and agriculture, Jeffrey Prescott, said a significant amount of that money would go to UN agencies and aid groups providing urgent food assistance, healthcare and nutrition support, shelter, water, sanitation and hygiene.

“This funding also includes direct support [of] agricultural commodities from American farmers,” said Prescott, who will formally announce the aid in Kinshasa on Wednesday with US ambassador to the DRC Lucy Tamlyn.

It takes total US funding for DRC since October to $838m (R15.38bn), said Prescott.

DRC's army has been battling M23 insurgents since 2022, and renewed fighting in the country's east has driven more than 1.7-million people from their homes, taking the total number of Congolese displaced by multiple conflicts to a record 7.2-million, according to UN estimates.

A UN aid appeal for $2.6bn (R47.73bn) for DRC this year is only one-third funded and the World Health Organisation warned last month that more than 1-million children are at risk from acute malnutrition.

Prescott said he hoped the US funding would encourage other countries to also “step up as well” and help DRC.

The US will also provide $10m (R183.6m) for health assistance and donate 50,000 mpox vaccines, Prescott said.

Mpox, a viral infection that can spread through close contact, is usually mild but can sometimes lead to death. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.

The current mpox outbreak in DRC has already seen about 27,000 cases, and claimed more than 1,100 lives, most of them children, since the beginning of 2023.

Reuters