A European emergency aid plane – the first of an airlift – landed on Friday March 10 in Goma, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A second flight is expected Tuesday or Wednesday in the provincial capital of North Kivu. The European Union announced, on March 4, the establishment of a civilian humanitarian air bridge towards Goma, with the support of France, to come to the aid of the populations hard hit by the fighting.
The conflict between the Congolese army and the M23 has, according to the UN, displaced more than 800,000 people and triggered a large-scale humanitarian crisis since the resumption of fighting last October.
An unknown crisis in the world
For the ambassador of the European Union in the DRC, Jean-Marc Châtaigner, present in Goma to welcome this first shipment, it is a question of putting a spotlight on an unknown crisis in the world.
“ There is stillhe said, displacements that occur, people who are fleeing the fighting and then there is an immense demand and absolutely immense needs. I think it’s a really emergency reaction, that is to say today in Goma and around Goma, there are about 600 000 displaced people. »
“ In the province of North Kivu, there are today 2.3 million displaced people. We are not going to solve everything but it is also, for us, a way to shine the spotlight on a situation which seems to us quite unknown in Africa, in Europe and which seems to us quite unknown in the world. So this is really a way of attracting attention and saying: we really have to mobilize because the situation is really very serious and which means that, for us today, the DRC is the first humanitarian crisis in Africa and undoubtedly one of the very first, at the global level, after Ukraine and after the situation in Turkey and Syria », concludes Jean-Marc Châtaigner.
35 tons of aid
The aircraft, which arrived on Friday, brought some 35 tons of aid – tents, mattresses, hygiene kits and medical equipment. For this aerial point, the European Union announced that it had released 47 million euros in aid, to which were added 34 million from France.
Read also: DRC: civil society in territories occupied by M23 rebels opposes the census