Conflict in D.R. Congo

A humanitarian catastrophe in the east

The DRC is a vast country with abundant resources, but millions of its people live in extreme poverty and are at risk of disease and violence. Years of conflict have created one of the world's largest and most complex humanitarian crises.

Since 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have lost their lives as a consequence of horrific violence, mass displacement, endemic poverty and most of all preventable diseases. Over 1.7 million people are still displaced and are today living in precarious conditions created by continuing insecurity and armed conflict.

• Most people do not live to see their 50th birthday
• 5.4 million people have lost their lives since 1998
• 1 in 3 children never go to school
• 3/4 don’t have access to clean water
• Less than 2% of roads are paved

Background to the conflict

Oxfam is there

Oxfam concentrates on providing clean water and sanitation, and we work with community groups to promote good hygiene practices to help prevent diseases such as malaria and cholera.

Unlike many large emergencies, the people displaced by violence tend to be hosted by other local communities, rather than in big camps. Oxfam works with these communities to assist more than 800,000 people affected by the conflict.

Find out more about Oxfam's response

ECHO (Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission) is supporting Oxfam's emergency response in eastern D.R. Congo

Learn more

• Oxfam's response
• Background to the conflict

On the ground

Oxfam has been working in DRC since 1961 and now has more than 350 staff working on programmes involving Water and Sanitation, Protection, Food Security and Livelihoods, Public Health, Advocacy, Education, and Gender Equality.

In pictures: Oxfam in action in the Congo

Oxfam’s emergency response team is on standby and prepared to respond within 72 hours to mass population displacements and cholera outbreaks. We concentrate on providing clean water and sanitation, and we work with community groups to promote good hygiene practices to help prevent diseases such as malaria and cholera.

Unlike many large emergencies, the people displaced by violence tend to be hosted by other local communities, rather than in big camps. Oxfam works with these communities to assist more than 800,000 people affected by the conflict.

Providing services alone is not enough, however, and Oxfam trains and supports local community committees to protect civilians’ rights. These committees engage with the police, army and the legal system to try and put an end to illegal detentions, extortion and other rights abuses. This work goes hand in hand with Oxfam’s global lobbying and advocacy efforts to raise attention to the conflict and the suffering of civilians.

In the northeast of the country, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has terrorised civilians for years, attacking villages, abducting women and children, and destroying  livelihoods. Oxfam is providing clean water to communities, hospitals and schools in the region, and works to provide support to people living with HIV and AIDS.

Eastern DRC is extremely lush and fertile, but the conflict and obstructions such as checkpoints, where farmers are forced to pay bribes to get to markets, mean it does not produce as much food as it should. Oxfam supports a number of farmers’ associations across the region to provide them with the seeds, tools and technical advice they need. 

Learn more

• Oxfam's response
• Background to the conflict

An unimaginable situation

The origins of the current conflict date back to the early 1990s, particularly the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when both perpetrators and victims fled into eastern Congo.

The conflict is fuelled in part by the illegal exploitation of mineral wealth; the weak state authority across large parts of the east; and armed groups taking advantage of this vacuum. With porous borders, weapons flow into the country with ease.

This has fed cycles of violence, with civilians both caught in the crossfire and directly targeted by a range of armed groups. This long-term instability and insecurity has stripped much of eastern DRC of almost all modern infrastructure, leaving it with virtually no industry and limited opportunities for education and jobs. The resulting poverty further fuels the violence, by giving many young men an economic incentive to take up arms.

In pictures: displacement in Beni

Recovery and development

While conflict rages in parts of eastern and northern Congo, other parts of the country are trying to recover from years of war and political turmoil which have left the country one of the poorest and least developed in the world.

Oxfam works to promote long-term development in these areas, by:

• Providing communities with water and sanitation facilities and hygiene education
• Improving basic education, and improving school and hospital facilities in western Congo and the capital Kinshasa
• Enabling people to start making a living again, by training people in business skills and giving tools such as nets for fishermen and animal vaccines for herders
• Helping people who fled their homes during the violence to return home and integrate back into their communities

  Before, we were suffering from a lot of stomach problems. We’ve really noticed a change since Oxfam has been working with us.

Chief Singo Pele, Datule village

Creating a better future for the next generation

After 30 years of conflict, government neglect and prolonged economic crises, primary education in D.R. Congo is limited and often non-existent – keeping future generations locked in poverty.

• Nearly half of children do not attend school
• 75 per cent of those who do, drop out of school before their fifth year

Oxfam is working to improve the quality of basic education and increase school enrolment, especially among girls. We train teachers and refurbish schools, making them rainproof and supplying them with desks.

  I can now learn better, the roof is much better and I like the new benches.

Sarah Mokita, pupil at Diangenda School