Democratic Republic of Congo, the militiamen and the continuous looting of mineral resources that Pope Francis denounces to the world

ROME – The visit of Pope Francis to the Democratic Republic of Congo – where he denounced the economic colonialism taking place on the continent, shouting to the world: “Hands off Africa, it is not a mine to be exploited or land to be plundered” – offers the starting point for an update on the latest developments in the humanitarian crisis that the country is going through and on the difficulties the various organizations encounter in planning aid and support interventions.

The attacks continue in North Kivu. L’UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) documents the latest attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which took place just over ten days ago, in a place intended for internally displaced persons in Plaine Savo, in the province of Ituri, whose capital is Bunia, and which it is located in the North Kivu region. Gunmen attacked civilians with firearms and killed two adults and five children. Most of the shelters have been looted and razed to the ground. Seventeen thousand people were displaced in the nearby town of Bule. They have found shelter in schools, churches and open-air markets, but have neither enough food nor water. According to an updated version, the Humanitarian Access Overview by ACAP extension, an independent observatory on the world of humanitarian aid and which provides analysis of the state of humanitarian access at a global level, The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in fourth place of the countries where the possibility of aid is very difficult. In the first three places of the ranking there is Afghanistan, Chad and Colombia.

The humanitarian budget. Non-state armed groups have killed more than 200 civilians in the Ituri region in recent weeks. They destroyed two thousand homes and demolished at least eighty schools. At least 52,000 people have fled, the number of displaced people has now reached 1.5 million. More attacks are taking place in North Kivu, where there has been an upsurge in conflict as of March 2022. 120,000 people from North Kivu have fled to Goma, the capital, to escape airstrikes and ground aggression by non-state armed groups. They escaped carrying few things on their heads and children on their backs.

The work of the UNHCR. The High Commission continues to provide life-saving assistance to displaced populations. In January alone, the agency helped more than a thousand families with disabled members, pregnant women and vulnerable people. Over 5.6 million people are displaced within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, making it the largest displaced population on the African continent and one of the largest in the world. The country is also home to 524,700 refugees. The mission ofInternational Rescue Committee (IRC) is about helping people whose lives are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future. Our job every day is to understand and respond to crises. But with so many crises around the world, it has special value to stop and review the totality of what is happening, spot the important trends and explain them to a wider audience. The annual Emergency Watchlist of the IRC is a fundamental tool for this purpose.

The tangle of jihadist militiamen and the long conflict in the Congo. For more than thirty years now, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been enduring an internal war, concentrated in the North-Eastern region, with numerous local ramifications, starring various armed formations, each of which boasts international, financial and other anchorages, or even explicit ties to criminal organizations that operate globally. To hold the scene in this picture is one of the numerous jihadist militias, the M23, responsible for numerous attacks on the civilian population in North Kivu and which officially acts in defense of the minority of the Tutsi ethnic group, a group which instead is dominant (and successful, after the 1994 genocide which saw the Hutu ethnic group succumb) in nearby Rwanda.

The continuous looting and the role of Rwanda. It is not easy to get along with the local Tutsi population in the North-Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and this is the reason with which the M23 militiamen justify their “defensive” incursions to “protect” the minority feels threatened and oppressed. But, beyond the possible friction between ethnic groups, the hegemonic interests of the Rwandan government can be glimpsed in the background of the acts of violence of the M23. And it is the Congolese president himself, Feliz Tchisekedi, who argues that in reality the real objective of the jihadist groups roaming the area, in the face of which the Congolese army itself is unable to do anything, is to occupy and control that region so rich of mineral resources to be exploited. A looting that involves numerous subjects, whether they act in the name of the interests of foreign nations or private organizations.