With tens of thousands of people displaced by militias in parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the population in other parts suffering at the hands of the national military, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator has called on the country’s Government to exercise its responsibilities to the Congolese people.

United Nations peacekeepers seized weapons and ammunition in the northeastern Ituri region as they, backed by helicopter gun ships, conducted their regular cordon and search operations designed to force militias to flee, or reduce "their capacity for nuisance," the mission said today.

The situation in the strife-torn eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has surpassed the upheavals in Sudan's Darfur region as "the biggest, most neglected humanitarian emergency in the world today," according to the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Over 88,000 displaced people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are receiving humanitarian aid again after a suspension forced by intensified fighting between ethnic militias, but the area remains tense and further disruption to aid activities cannot be ruled out, the United Nations announced today.