Conflict has forced more than 1.5 million Congolese to flee their homes this year, far more than in Iraq or Syria. More than 3,000 have died since last October in an insurrection against the government in central Congo's Kasai region. Altogether, 3.8 million Congolese are internally displaced, more than in any other African country, according to OCHA. Some 7.3 million need humanitarian assistance.
About 80,000 people have fled fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo army and a new rebel coalition, the United Nations said on Tuesday, joining the millions already uprooted in Africa's worst displacement crisis.
About 80,000 people have fled fighting between the Democratic Republic of Congo army and a new rebel coalition, the United Nations said on Tuesday, joining the millions already uprooted in Africa's worst displacement crisis.
Militia violence has intensified across Congo since President Joseph Kabila refused to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate in December, raising fears the country will slide back into the wars at the turn of the century that killed millions. The latest fighting broke out in South Kivu province's Fizi territory, in the eastern part of the country. Government troops clashed with the National Coalition of the People for the Sovereignty of Congo (CNPSC), a new alliance of local self-defence militias, the U.N. Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a new report. The rebels seized several towns last month before being beaten back by government troops, according to the army, which said at least a dozen people were killed in the clashes. OCHA warned that tit-for-tat attacks between competing communities in South Kivu risked reviving inter-ethnic tensions that have fuelled repeated conflicts.
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