A dire displacement crisis is escalating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as M23 rebels make headway while aid routes are cut off, UN humanitarians warned on Friday.
"The crisis is worsening as people flee to areas where humanitarian aid cannot reach due to insecurity," UN refugee agency ( UNHCR ) spokesperson Eujin Byun told reporters in Geneva.
The development comes a day after the top UN aid official in the country Bruno Lemarquis warned that a shortage of humanitarian routes was threatening the aid operation in the region.
Advance on Bukavu
The rebels, who seized North Kivu province's capital Goma late last month, are advancing towards Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, following a short-lived lull in fighting.
Ms. Byun said that in South Kivu, more than half of the aid groups providing critical support to survivors of sexual violence "report being unable to reach those in need due to insecurity and continuous displacement".
Meanwhile, in North Kivu, "the destruction of health facilities, including mortuaries, and overcrowded hospitals increase the risk of spreading infectious diseases, including cholera, malaria, and measles," she said.
The UNHCR spokesperson also highlighted the fact that "heavy artillery shelling and looting" have destroyed 70,000 emergency shelters around Goma and Minova in North and South Kivu provinces, leaving some 350,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) "once again without a roof over their heads".
While some 100,000 displaced people have attempted to return to their home areas - where they are met with damage to their homes and a lack of essential services - many remain stranded, Ms. Byun said.
Deadly remnants
Unexploded ordnance left over from the fighting is another obstacle to their safe return.
Ms. Byun warned of the possibility that those people "will be displaced once again".
The UNHCR spokesperson stressed that most of the 28 IDP sites around Goma are now destroyed. The agency's concern in terms of aid access is that the road from Goma to Bukavu has been cut off, she said.
Ms. Byun also recalled that the airport in Goma is "still not functioning for humanitarian aid".
"Since violence has spread to South Kivu, this supply line is our biggest concern," she added.
With the rebels pushing towards Bukavu, the UN's Mr. Lemarquis expressed worry on Thursday about the fate of South Kivu's main airport some 20 miles from the province's capital, which until recently was the "main lifeline" for bringing in humanitarian personnel.
Mpox spread
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the UN World Health Organization ( WHO ), Christian Lindmeier, highlighted the "heavy" impact of the hostilities on the mpox response, "particularly in Goma and the adjacent area" as the fighting spread southwards.
He stressed that the DRC is "the worst-affected country for mpox", with Kivu being the epicentre of the highly infectious clade 1b outbreak.
Due to the rapid spread of the clade 1b strain, in August last year WHO moved to declare mpox once again a "public health emergency of international concern", for the second time after a global outbreak of the virus made headlines in 2022.
Earlier this month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that before the latest violence in eastern DRC, mpox cases had been stabilizing. But the recent fighting has forced patients to flee treatment centres, increasing transmission risks.
"Out of 143 confirmed mpox patients in isolation units in Goma and around, 128 fled in fear for their lives," Mr. Lindmeier said, stressing that only 15 patients remain in isolation.
"That's of course dangerous for everybody around," he insisted.
Mr. Lindmeier added that some health facilities in the area had been looted, health workers had fled, and people were unable to access healthcare because of the security situation.
