More than one million people have been displaced by fighting in central Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. People have fled due to fighting between the Congolese army and militias as well as fear of reprisals by both sides against the population, the agency said in a report published on its website Friday.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Bloomberg. </s> A mother and baby who fled from militia violence in Kasai Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrive at Lóvua settlement in northern Angola in August 2017. © UNHCR/Rui Padilha

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, remains deeply concerned at the situation in the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where continuing instability poses a grave risk to civilian safety, including for several hundred refugees recently returned there from Angola.

Congolese government forces have regained control of large areas of the Kasai, nonetheless there is sporadic fighting between the armed forces and militia groups. Meanwhile, tensions remain high between different ethnic groups, threatening to plunge the region into new violence. UNHCR staff in Tshikapa, a city some 60 kilometres from the border with Angola, report that several internally displaced people, as well as those who have returned from Angola, have been unable to return to their communities because of inter-ethnic hostility.

In February, the tensions led to the internal displacement of over 11,000 people further north in the region, in Mweka Territory. These are in addition to the approximately 900,000 Congolese who have been internally displaced since the Kasai crisis erupted in 2016.

The Kasai conflict has also forced over 35,000 Congolese to seek refuge in Angola. Since September 2017 some of them have spontaneously returned to DRC – only to find that reaching their former homes is impossible. Many are today living in churches and mosques, while others were forced to move to different provinces.

Support for the returnees to rebuild their houses is often absent, as humanitarian funding does not at present allow for a major rebuilding programme. For 2018, UNHCR has requested US$ 368.7 million to help those affected by the DRC crisis. So far we have received just 1 per cent of this.

Among Congolese refugees in Angola, many say they are unwilling to return to their areas of origin at present, because of the fragile situation. UNHCR also believes that returns are not yet possible in a safe, dignified and sustainable manner, since peace and security are lacking.

UNHCR was therefore deeply concerned to learn a few days ago of the forced return of some 530 Congolese from Angola to the DRC between 25 and 27 February. Among them, 52 were registered refugees living in Dundo town close to the DRC border, and about 480 were unregistered refugees staying at the Cacanda reception centre in Dundo. The returns were carried out despite UNHCR’s requests to the Angolan authorities to undertake joint screening of the unregistered group.

UNHCR urges the Angolan authorities to refrain from further forcible returns of Congolese to their country. Should conditions change, UNHCR stands ready to assist the authorities in DRC and Angola in voluntary repatriation discussions.

For more information on this topic, please contact: </s> GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, April 26 (Reuters) - U nited Nations investigators have discovered five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo's Ituri province where an outbreak of ethnic violence has killed at least 263 people, a U.N. peacekeeping mission said.

The report from the mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December that has caused one of Africa's most serious refugee crises.

Violence across eastern Congo's borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has spiked since President Joseph Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his mandate in 2016, eroding state authority and emboldening armed groups.

The mostly Lendu-led attacks have forced more than 60,000 people to flee across Lake Albert into Uganda, and the U.N. refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees to reach Uganda this year. Tens of thousands of others have fled to other towns inside Congo.

The investigators did not provide details about the suspected mass graves, but said that about 120 towns and villages were pillaged and destroyed between December and mid-March.

According to Hema refugees Reuters interviewed last month in Uganda, Lendu groups typically attack Hema villages shortly after dusk with guns, machetes, axes and bows and arrows.

The precise motives for the attacks are difficult to pin down but tensions between the two communities have long been stoked by disagreements over cattle grazing rights, crops, gold mining and political representation.

Open warfare between the two communities from 1999-2007 is estimated to have killed some 50,000 people in one of the bloodiest chapters of a civil war in eastern Congo that left millions dead from conflict, hunger and disease.

Aid agencies say the crisis is a "mega-disaster" and are trying to raise over $2 billion to respond but Congo's government has accused them of exaggerating the situation and boycotted a recent donor conference. </s> GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - United Nations investigators have discovered five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo’s Ituri province where an outbreak of ethnic violence has killed at least 263 people, a U.N. peacekeeping mission said.

The report from the mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December that has caused one of Africa’s most serious refugee crises.

Violence across eastern Congo’s borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has spiked since President Joseph Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his mandate in 2016, eroding state authority and emboldening armed groups.

The mostly Lendu-led attacks have forced more than 60,000 people to flee across Lake Albert into Uganda, and the U.N. refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees to reach Uganda this year. Tens of thousands of others have fled to other towns inside Congo.

The investigators did not provide details about the suspected mass graves, but said that about 120 towns and villages were pillaged and destroyed between December and mid-March.

According to Hema refugees Reuters interviewed last month in Uganda, Lendu groups typically attack Hema villages shortly after dusk with guns, machetes, axes and bows and arrows. [nL1N1R20YN]

The precise motives for the attacks are difficult to pin down but tensions between the two communities have long been stoked by disagreements over cattle grazing rights, crops, gold mining and political representation.

Open warfare between the two communities from 1999-2007 is estimated to have killed some 50,000 people in one of the bloodiest chapters of a civil war in eastern Congo that left millions dead from conflict, hunger and disease.

Aid agencies say the crisis is a “mega-disaster” and are trying to raise over $2 billion to respond but Congo’s government has accused them of exaggerating the situation and boycotted a recent donor conference. [nL8N1RQ2TH] </s> GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo - United Nations investigators have discovered five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo’s Ituri province where an outbreak of ethnic violence has killed at least 263 people, a UN peacekeeping mission said.

The report from the mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December that has caused one of Africa’s most serious refugee crises.

Violence across eastern Congo’s borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has spiked since President Joseph Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his mandate in 2016, eroding state authority and emboldening armed groups.

The mostly Lendu-led attacks have forced more than 60,000 people to flee across Lake Albert into Uganda, and the UN refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees to reach Uganda this year. Tens of thousands of others have fled to other towns inside Congo.

The investigators did not provide details about the suspected mass graves, but said that about 120 towns and villages were pillaged and destroyed between December and mid-March.

According to Hema refugees Reuters interviewed last month in Uganda, Lendu groups typically attack Hema villages shortly after dusk with guns, machetes, axes and bows and arrows.

The precise motives for the attacks are difficult to pin down but tensions between the two communities have long been stoked by disagreements over cattle grazing rights, crops, gold mining and political representation.

Open warfare between the two communities from 1999-2007 is estimated to have killed some 50,000 people in one of the bloodiest chapters of a civil war in eastern Congo that left millions dead from conflict, hunger and disease.

Aid agencies say the crisis is a “mega-disaster” and are trying to raise over $2 billion to respond but Congo’s government has accused them of exaggerating the situation and boycotted a recent donor conference. </s> Renewed fighting between ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 160 people.

Nearly 40 villages were destroyed and more than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the eastern province of Ituri during the past week.

Al Jazeera gained exclusive access to one of the villages that was attacked. Raheela Mahomed reports. </s> Air strikes and ground fighting in southern Syria have forced at least 45,000 people to flee, the United Nations said on Tuesday, the largest displacement in the area so far.

Backed by Russia, Syrian government forces have ramped up air strikes and ground attacks on rebel positions in the south, particularly its main province of Daraa.

"Our estimates are 45,000, maybe even higher," said Linda Tom, spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) in Syria.

The displacements have been happening increasingly fast in recent days as violence has escalated, Tom said.

"Over the last couple of days we saw a very large number of people who fled because of the ongoing hostilities, because of the shelling and fighting in that area," she told AFP.

The majority are fleeing from the eastern parts of Daraa province south towards the sealed border with Jordan, which has said it cannot absorb any more refugees.

"We haven't seen massive displacement in this scale in Daraa," Tom said.

The UN had previously warned that fighting was putting 750,000 people in rebel-held areas of the south in harm's way.

More than five million people have fled abroad since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011. Another six million are displaced inside the country. </s> A fresh flare-up of ethnic violence has claimed the lives of at least 49 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ituri province.

The murders took place overnight in the village of Maze, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Bunia, the capital of the northeastern province of Ituri, which has been wracked by conflict between the Hema and Lendu communities, the government said on Friday.

Alfred Ndrabu Buju from international Catholic charity Caritas said, "We have counted 49 bodies and are still searching for other bodies."

"A child was admitted this morning in Drodro general hospital, with an arrow in his head," Buju added.

Interior Minister Henri Mova earlier said 33 were killed in the unrest.

"The provincial governor is on his way to the site of the killings," Mova said.

Witnesses said the assailants were members of the Lendu community.

"The attackers went into the village and committed a real massacre," said local activist Banza Charite.

More than 100 people have been killed since the violence erupted in Ituri in mid-December. The unrest has also forced 200,000 people to flee their homes.

More than 28,000 of the displaced have crossed the border into Uganda in recent weeks, according to UN figures, most of them women and children, reporting horrific stories of violence.

Tensions between the Hema cattle herders and Lendu farmers have largely laid dormant since a 1998-2003 war, which claimed the lives of thousands, but have flared again in recent months because of disputes over land.

The United Nations said earlier this year it would seek more than $1.5 billion to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, warning the violence-torn country was at a "breaking point." </s> GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Ethnic clashes between Hema herders and Lendu farmers in the northeastern province of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed more than 40 people, local officials said Friday.

Tensions between the groups have been largely dormant since their battles from 1998 to 2003 left thousands of people dead, but violence has flared again in recent months because of disputes over land.

At least 30 people were killed in two days of clashes last month between armed Hema and Lendu.

Militia activity has increased across eastern Congo’s borderlands near Uganda and Rwanda in the past year, stoked in part by President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down in December 2016 as required by the Constitution.

Alfred Ndrabu, a member of the Roman Catholic Church’s Justice and Peace Commission in Ituri, said a colleague in the village of Maze had counted 49 bodies from Thursday’s clashes, which continued into Friday morning.

“The Lendu and their allies attacked the village of Maze,” Mr. Ndrabu said. “They were pushed back by security forces.”

“They returned with reinforcements,” he said, “which was when they perpetrated the carnage.”

Jean-Bosco Lalo, an activist based in the provincial capital, Bunia, said his organization had so far recorded 43 deaths. He did not say who had initiated the violence.
The UN Refugee Agency reports that more than 900,000 people have been displaced by the ongoing fighting in the central provinces of DR Congo between militias and government forces since 2016.