“We are up to 23 bodies now,” Goma rescue service coordinator Joseph Makundi told AFP.

Goma airport official Richard Mangolopa told AFP no survivors were expected from the disaster.

The Dornier-228 aircraft had been headed for Beni, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Goma when it went down in a residential area near the airport in the east of the country.

“There were 17 passengers on board and two crew members. It took off around 9-9.10 am (0700 GMT),” Busy Bee airline staff member Heritier Said Mamadou said.

Busy Bee, a recent company, has three planes serving routes in North Kivu province.

One of the company’s maintenance workers at the site quoted by news site actualite.cd blamed a “technical problem”.

The number of casualties on the ground was not yet known.

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“Fourteen dead, three hospitalized with serious injuries. Search continuing,” Steve Mbikayi, the minister of national solidarity and humanitarian action, said in a tweet.

The accident happened at Kampene, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of town of Kindu.

Also, Civil society campaigner Justin Kyanga Asumani said the accident happened at about 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) at the illegal mine in the province of Maniema.

“Dozens of people, including children and pregnant women” were working on the site when the mine collapsed”, he said.

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The Personal Assistant to President Buhari on new media, Mr Bashir Ahmad disclosed this on Wednesday.

The government pulled out over the fresh xenophobic attacks in the country.

Mr Bashir Ahmad in his tweet on Wednesday further stressed that “VP Prof. Yemi Osinbajo was to represent Nigeria at the World Economic Forum which is currently holding in South Africa but called it off in reaction to the gruesome attacks on Nigerians”.

Nigeria joins the list of a number of African countries whose leaders would not be attending the forum.

Earlier reports had it that the Presidents of the DR Congo, Rwanda and Malawi had withdrawn from the forum owing to the violence recorded in the country this week but the South African Department of International relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) has denied this.

In a statement, the department insists that all the leaders who have confirmed attendance will be doing so.

DIRCO also says that contrary to reports, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame had declined the invitation because of other pressing engagements while the other two leaders mentioned never responded to the invitation in the first place .

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“New displacements, lack of financial support, little to no humanitarian access due to insecurity and the spread of a deadly virus, is pushing DR Congo to the brink of disaster. The international community is looking away while a new humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding and it deserves urgent attention now,” said Maureen Philippon, Country Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in DR Congo.

“The level of atrocities, human rights violations and killings have reached a new high in Ituri province and again innocent civilians are bearing the brunt of this deplorable violence. We are hearing reports of indiscriminate killings, sexual violence, villages being burnt down and other forms of depravity against men, women and children,” she said.

Since early June, intense intercommunal violence in Djugu territory has forced more than 300,000 people to flee and seek refuge in neighbouring territories, according to estimates provided by UNHCR

According to several news reports, at least 160 persons have been killed while entire villages have been burned and abandoned. Displaced people have moved towards Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, and to more stable locations within Djugu, Mahagi and Irumu territories.

“The horrific consequences of violence are witnessed every day on the ground. It is frustrating to see the displacement and humanitarian crisis in DR Congo viewed by the world as a non-event year by year,” warned Philippon.

This latest emergency is likely to overstretch the already limited humanitarian resources available. As of June 25, only 21 per cent of the funds requested have been received.

“In the coming weeks, we will provide displaced persons in Bunia with food, shelters and household items that people can use for cooking and to shower but this will be nowhere near enough to cope with the needs. We urgently call on the international community to turn their declarations of deep concern into urgent action so we can reach as many displaced people as possible and ease their suffering,” Philippon concluded.”

Facts and Figures:

• Up to 300 000 displaced people in Ituri province alone (June 2019, UNHCR)
• Since the beginning of the current Ebola outbreak, there are 2153 confirmed cases in DR Congo and Ituri province alone has recorded 213 confirmed Ebola cases (June 2019), (DRC Health Ministry)
• About 13.1 million people are acutely food insecure across DR Congo, this represents 23% of the rural population of 101 territories, out of 145 territories; according to the IPC (August 2018 and June 2019)
• DR Congo was declared second most neglected crisis by the Norwegian Refugee Council – Neglected Crisis List 2018
• 4.5 million Congolese were internally displaced at the end of 2017 (UNOCHA)
• There were 1.8 million new displaced people by conflict and violence in DR Congo between January and December 2018 (IDMC)
• As of June 25, only 21 per cent of $1.65bn requested to respond to humanitarian needs in DR Congo has been received (UNOCHA)
• There are over 542 978 refugees in DR Congo (April 2019) (UNHCR)
• As of May 2019, there were 693,054 Congolese refugee and asylum seekers in Uganda (UNHCR)

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“The expulsion of Congolese from Angola over the course of the last month is truly shocking and risk further destabilizing the situation in Kasai,” said Ulrika Blom, NRC DR Congo Country Director. “Several hundred thousand people flooding across the border to Congo puts an even greater strain on an already dire humanitarian situation.”

During the month of October, an estimated 360,000 Congolese have poured across the nine border crossings that the Democratic Republic of Congo shares with Angola. The people coming across the border are a mixed population of longstanding migrant workers, as well as the thousands of refugees who had fled Congo when the Kasai regional conflict broke out in the latter half of 2016 and into 2017.

An expulsion of unprotected Congolese citizens in such large numbers over a short period, poses a massive threat to the already fragile and unstable context in the Greater Kasai Region. At least 2 million people in the region have returned to their places of origin while 1.3 million remain displaced. With the funding of the Congo Humanitarian Response Plan well under 50 per cent and with a thin humanitarian presence in the region, there is a very serious risk that this latest influx of people in need could fuel conflict and cause hundreds of thousands of people in need to battle over the meagre assistance available.

“Lacklustre donor response to the overall humanitarian crisis in DR Congo has come to haunt us with this latest emergency at the Congo-Angola border,” said Blom. “The 2018 humanitarian budget is basically obsolete because of the sheer number of crises and setbacks we have experienced across the country over the last three months.”

The conditions that the expelled face once they return to Congo are shocking.
The risk of waterborne disease is high due to the lack of latrines and sanitation systems. People are unable to bathe regularly due to lack of potable water in border towns like Kamako. Thousands are sleeping outdoors, putting their security at risk, because there is no shelter or housing available for the influx of people crossing the border. Extortion of goods on both sides of the border is rife. Expelled children-many of them separated from their parents- are enrolling in local border schools without uniforms or any school materials.

Food prices for staple foods such as rice, flour and oil have tripled because Angolan merchants that normally crossed the border to sell their produce are too afraid to do so, thus paralysing the economy of Congolese border communities.

Finally, the economic situation is further compounded by the fact that the value of the Angolan Kwanza, the currency many of the expelled were using prior to being sent back to Congo, lost a third of its value since the beginning of the crisis in early-October.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been robbed of their right to a dignified existence,” said Blom. “This is not a crisis that is about to begin, it is a full-blown emergency. The international community must urgently increase the funding for humanitarian assistance.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is addressing some of the humanitarian challenges arising from Congolese expulsion with rapid response interventions in the affected areas. The agency will provide water, shelter and cash, and will work to improve the sanitation facilities in consortium with the French humanitarian organisation, Solidarités International, with funding from UNICEF and the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Operations agency (ECHO). NRC has already assisted over 300,000 people in need across the Greater Kasai Region with cash, shelter, household items, education and food since May 2017.

About NRC in DR Congo

The Norwegian Refugee Council is an aid organization working in over 30 countries globally. It set up in DR Congo in 2001, and today helps communities in South Kivu, North Kivu, Ituri, Tanganyika and Kasaï-Central. We provide assistance in education, land rights and civil documentation, food, household items and rapid response to people who are displaced, to those returning from displacement and to host communities across the country.

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“These children are among the most vulnerable in the country, and now they face a looming crisis if access to basic services is not restored quickly,” said Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, in a press release.

“Without adequate health care, without access to food and clean water, the lives of hundreds of thousands of children are at risk,” she added.

UNICEF needs $40.2 million for its emergency response in Greater Kasai

Across the five provinces of Greater Kasai, critical health infrastructures are no longer operational due to the conflict. In Central Kasai Province alone, more than one-third of health centers have been forced to close following looting, due to security concerns for staff or lack of medical supplies, depriving children of vital services and medicine.

Supplies of food and basic necessities are dwindling, and displacement has forced families to live in conditions with inadequate hygiene or sanitation.

“Our priority over the next few weeks is to reach thousands of severely malnourished children that can no longer be cared for in the health centers that have been destroyed,” said Tajudeen Oyewale, acting UNICEF Representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “But insecurity in these remote areas is making our work very challenging.”

Even before the latest wave of violence, the Kasai Provinces were among the poorest in the country. More than one in ten children die before the age of five due to lack of adequate health care. Half the children suffer from chronic malnutrition or stunting.

UNICEF needs $40.2 million for its emergency response in Greater Kasai.

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