As of 6 October, some 27,000 – most of them women and children – have been displaced by the violence and need urgent assistance in Kwilu and Mai Ndombe provinces.
Another 2,600 people have sought refuge in the Republic of the Congo after crossing the Congo River in canoes.
Many have become separated from family members during their flight.
A surge of deadly intercommunal violence started over customary taxes on agricultural land use between the Teke and Yaka communities. More than 142 people have been killed, including some who were beheaded.
Families, traumatized by the sudden and violent clashes that erupted in the past weeks, fled for their lives and found refuge in the surrounding forest with their children. Many have left their farms and fields and abandoned their harvests in the granaries.
This latest displacement in the DRC exacerbates an already severely underfunded response to assist the 521,000 refugees and more than 5.5 million internally displaced people from the country. Just 40 percent of the US$225.4 million required has been funded. In the Republic of the Congo, UNHCR has only received 16 percent of the requested US$37.4 million needed for its refugee response in 2022.
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