kivu

Long-term international support is needed to overhaul the prison system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where inmates routinely have to sleep in disease-ridden hallways and men, women and children incarcerated together, a senior United Nations peacekeeping official says.

The latest outbreak of fighting in the troubled South Kivu province in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), pitting Government forces against Rwandan rebels, has forced 35,000 people from their homes, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today warned that the perpetrators of recent targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will face justice, as United Nations aid agencies combat the spread of diseases among people uprooted by the conflict.

The Security Council today voiced deep concern over the recent resurgence of violence in the easternmost provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), warning of its potential to undermine the wider Great Lakes region of Central Africa.

Intense fighting broke out yesterday between the army and rebels loyal to the former general Laurent Nkunda in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with the army using rocket launchers and other heavy artillery, the United Nations peacekeeping mission reported today.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said today that its forces in the volatile far east of the country remain on high alert, despite the relative calm in the region since this morning.

Female survivors of rape and sexual abuse are sharing their stories today at an event organized by the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where rape has been used as a weapon of war and an estimated 200,000 women and girls have been assaulted over the past 12 years.

The United Nations refugee agency and its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today condemned an attack by armed Rwandan Hutu rebels on a camp for displaced persons in the eastern DRC that has killed at least six people and left many more injured.

The top United Nations official in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has appealed to the parties in the volatile Kivu provinces in the country’s northeast to implement the commitments made in recent accords and help more than one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees try to resume normal life.