Some villagers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have turned to eating snails, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as the ongoing violence continues to fuel a growing humanitarian crisis in the country, with millions of internally displaced people, malnourished children and poor food production.
In Mukambe, a remote village in the southeastern province of Tanganyika, where inter-ethnic conflict has uprooted more than 650,000 people from their homes, Roger keeps his wife and six children fed by foraging for snails in the forest.
He said it was practically the only food they had been eating for months and that it took days of searching deep into the bush to find enough for everyone.
READ MORE: At least 14 UN Peacekeepers killed in Congo attack, several others wounded
Further west, in the Kasai Province, nurse Therese Baswa leads a nutrition program at a health centre in the village of Tshikaji that saw more than 300 malnourished children between May 2017 and January 2018, according to the ICRC.
About 400,000 children in Kasai suffer from severe acute malnutrition, according to the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF).
For those who returned to their homes in the Kasai after fleeing the conflict, like Ngalula, food shortages persist due to the conflict but also rising global food prices linked to high oil and transport costs.
The ICRC together with farming associations is helping farmers to plant again by providing seeds, tools, and land given by local chiefs. Ngalula is one of them, working with the Bupole farming association.
A long-delayed election to replace President Joseph Kabila is at the root of violence that has ravaged the Central African country.
Earlier on Monday, the UN condemned an “unlawful and unjustified” crackdown by Congolese security forces on anti-government protests that killed at least 47 people in the year to January 2018.
READ MORE: Canada-wide warrant issued for Surrey, B.C. man in ‘cowardly’ assault on man with autism
About 2.2 million people became internally displaced in the DRC last year alone, nearly doubling the total number of internally displaced people to 4.5 million.
With some 13 million people needing humanitarian assistance, more than 4.6 million acutely malnourished children and the worst outbreak of cholera in 15 years, Lowcock said about $1.7 billion is needed this year for humanitarian programs in the DRC, nearly four times what was secured in 2017.
Lowcock asked for “immediate and substantial financial contributions” ahead of the first high-level humanitarian conference on the DRC to be held in Geneva on April 13.
“Underfunding is the largest single impediment to the humanitarian response in the DRC,” Lowcock said, adding that without a halt to the violence and a successful political transition the crisis will continue to escalate.
— With files from Reuters’ Rodrigo Campos