EU launches aid airlift for troubled eastern DR Congo
The EU announced Wednesday a humanitarian airlift for eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, flying desperately needed supplies into the city of Goma.
The operation, responding to a UN appeal, "will contribute to reaching the greatest number of people possible" to a region beset by fighting between armed groups and mass displacement, EU crisis management commissioner Janez Lenarcic said.
The European Union is transporting 180 tonnes of food, medicine and other supplies aboard two flights from Europe to the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
From Nairobi, a total of eight flights this month will get the aid to Goma, with two of those already having taken place on Tuesday, EU officials said.
In early August, the United Nations expressed alarm at the deterioration of the situation in three eastern DRC provinces -- in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri -- where nearly 5.6 million people have been displaced over the past 16 months.
Humanitarian workers distributing aid and assistance to people in those provinces needed more funding and supplies, the UN said at the time.
Militias and rebel groups have plagued much of eastern DRC for decades, many of them a legacy of regional wars that flared at the end of the last century.
One armed group, the M23, has captured swathes of North Kivu since taking up arms again in late 2021 after years of dormancy.
Independent UN experts, the government and several Western nations including the United States and France accuse Rwanda of actively backing the M23, despite denials from Kigali.
The European Commission, in a statement Wednesday, said "the already disastrous situation continues to deteriorate".
Lenarcic said: "The EU remains strongly determined to come to the aid of the most vulnerable in the Democratic Republic of Congo."
The EU ran a similar airlift between March and May this year, during which it flew in 260 tonnes of aid on seven flights in cooperation with France and humanitarian organisations.
The latest operation, along with an aid package announced earlier this year, takes the EU's aid contribution to DRC this year to 80 million euros ($86 million), Lenarcic said.
