War, disease and climate crises have left tens of millions of people on the brink of starvation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a United Nations agency said.

The displacement of about 7 million people through fighting in the country as well as weather-related disasters and outbreaks of mpox, measles and cholera have left more than 40 percent of the country’s 100 million people short of food, the World Food Programme said.

“It’s a cocktail of conflict, climate and contagion that’s come to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Peter Musoko, the WFP’s resident representative in the country, at a presentation in Johannesburg on Wednesday. “We need $350 million in the next six months” to bolster support for affected communities, he said.

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Congo’s east, which has faced almost continual conflict since the late 1990s, is the epicenter of an outbreak of mpox while the millions of displaced people in camps has also stoked eruptions of other diseases. Sexual violence is rife and the operation of militias makes aid distribution perilous.

Human decency

“What I saw was really mind blowing and defies every decency in humanity,” Eric Perdison, the WFP’s regional director for southern Africa said of a recent visit to the country.

While the WFP assisted 2.7 million Congolese with cash or food between January and September the country’s total needs are far higher — more than 25 million are facing a severe crisis, the group said.

It’s also just one of a number of countries across southern and central Africa trying to feed its people.

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A drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has devastated corn crops in countries from Zambia and Angola southward, leaving the WFP and governments struggling to secure aid for 26 million people desperate for sustenance at a time when the world’s focus is on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Of the $480 million needed to fund WFP activities until the next harvest in about May, only $108 million has been secured, Perdison said.

In Zimbabwe almost half the population is in need of aid with the WFP collecting only a quarter of the $201 million it needs to feed its target of 1.8 million people in both the countryside and towns.

“We are getting close to not being able to meet the procurement window” to buy grain in time, Barbara Clemens, the country director for Zimbabwe said. “It’s rather urgent.”

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The Malawi program is facing a $60 million shortfall, Mozambique is $112 million below its target and Zambia is in need of $33 million. In Lesotho, where the agency is seeking $30 million, food insecurity is driving people to migrate to South Africa, the more affluent country that surrounds it, Elliot Vhurumuku, the WFP’s representative there, said.