Kinshasa/ Geneva (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has launched its largest relief
operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2006.
The operation will reach close to 40,000 beneficiaries.
The people concerned, who had been forced by armed
violence to flee their villages in North Kivu province (Rutshuru district) and take refuge elsewhere in the province and in Uganda, were able to return home early this year.
However, they
are now suffering from lack of food owing to a poor harvest.
"Food supplies are rapidly dwindling and the number of malnourished children admitted to special feeding centres has more than
doubled in three months," said Morena Bassan, head of the ICRC's economic security programme in North Kivu.
The aim of the operation, which is being carried out with the help of volunteers
from the Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is to meet the population's most pressing needs and to help people prepare for the coming planting season.
Over 2,000
tonnes of food (maize, beans, oil and salt) will be distributed in order to tide the population over until the next harvest.
Farming tools and seed will also be handed out so that the
communities concerned can rapidly become self-sufficient.
The ICRC's programmes for internally displaced people are designed both to help them during their displacement and to enable them
to get back on their feet again once they have returned home.
Paramilitary policemen help a child escape danger as Typhoon Fung-Wong hits a levee in Wenling, Zhejiang province, July 28, 2008. Typhoon Fung-Wong had weakened into a tropical storm by Tuesday after ...
