It is a fate difficult to imagine for an adult, much less a child:
As fighting engulfs your community, your family is forced from their home. In the chaos that ensues, you become separated from your loved ones. Around you, people are being assaulted and killed. You run, but you don’t know where to go. You are terrified and alone. Soon, you are hungry. Soon after that, you are sick.
But for many children separated from their families during recent fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), this is only the beginning of the nightmare.
Reports of forced recruitment of children by armed groups are on the rise throughout the conflict-riddled North Kivu province of the DRC. UNICEF has warned that children who have been separated from their families are particularly at risk of exploitation. Displaced children are also made vulnerable to other forms of abuse, including rape.
The catastrophic humanitarian situation in DRC has forced more 250,000 people to flee their homes within the last two months alone. Insecurity has also resulted in the shuttering of thousands of schools and has led to an increase in deadly diseases and malnutrition. The fighting has made it difficult for UNICEF and other aid agencies to access all of those affected.
The crisis has generated sustained and widespread coverage from a range of news organizations. Read these stories on the plight of displaced children from the Associated Press, Agence France Presse and The International Herald Tribune.
UNICEF is responding to the immediate crisis in the DRC on many other fronts, from immunizing children against measles and polio, to providing free health care, to trucking in clean water to stave off cholera and other waterborne diseases.
More than 5 million people have died since the conflict began in 1996, most from starvation and preventable disease.
Are there aspects of this crisis that are not getting adequate news coverage? Have you followed UNICEF’s work in the DRC? Let me know. And, please help UNICEF run it's humanitarian aid operations for the children of DRC by donating online at www.unicefusa.org/donate/drc.
