US to provide DR Congo $414 million in humanitarian help

More than 25 million people, or about a quarter of the country’s population, are in need of humanitarian relief in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the US announced on Wednesday that it would send nearly $414 million in aid.

A sizeable portion of the money, according to US Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture Jeffrey Prescott, will go to UN organizations and relief organizations that provide emergency food assistance, healthcare and nutrition support, housing, water, sanitation, and hygiene.

“This funding also includes direct support (of) agricultural commodities from American farmers,” stated Prescott, who along with US Ambassador to the DRC Lucy Tamlyn will formally announce the aid on Wednesday in Kinshasa.

Prescott stated that the entire amount of US support for DRC since October is now $838 million.

The UN estimates that 7.2 million Congolese have been displaced by various conflicts, with the country’s army fighting M23 terrorists since 2022. More than 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes as a result of recent violence in the east of the country.

Only one-third of the $2.6 billion in aid requested by the UN for the DRC this year has been financed, and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning last month that over a million children in the country are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Prescott expressed the hope that the US money will inspire other nations to “step up as well” and support the DRC.

Additionally, the US will give 50,000 mpox vaccines and $10 million for health support, according to Prescott.

The virus known as mpox, which is contracted through intimate contact, is normally harmless but can occasionally be fatal. It results in pus-filled sores on the body and flu-like symptoms.

Since the beginning of 2023, the current mpox outbreak in Congo has resulted in around 27,000 illnesses and more than 1,100 deaths, the majority of which were children.