On Thursday, the DRC armed forces and the “March 23 Movement (M23)” rebel group in Kanyabayonga, in northern Bwito Chiefdom in Rutshuru territory, kept the inhabitants in suspense.

The military troops launched a campaign to recover the villages occupied by the insurgents. Although they have managed to regain control of some villages, the clashes continue, the number of displaced persons is increasing, and the delivery of humanitarian aid has been interrupted in several places due to those confrontations.

Bruno Lemarquis, a humanitarian coordinator for the DRC, informed on June 10 that more than 900,000 people were displaced between January and April in Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu provinces and expressed concern about the persistence of violence and the alarming deterioration of the humanitarian situation.

Lemarquis noted that the existing insecurity in those provinces, where the number of internal refugees has risen to more than 5.6 million out of an estimated 7.3 million in the country, runs the risk of further aggravating the situation.

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