Ongoing conflict is threatening children’s lives, uprooting millions from their homes, and turning children’s schools and play areas into battlegrounds. The ongoing insecurity is also leaving families and children facing extreme hunger and malnutrition, without the basics to survive. To make matters worse, the DRC is now facing the rapid spread of the deadly mpox virus.
This environment of chaos and insecurity is also putting children at risk of recruitment by armed forces, child labour, abductions, and sexual violence.
As a result, the DRC is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian and food insecurity disasters, and has become the second largest internally displaced people’s crisis globally.
The country is also suffering the impacts of the climate crisis with more frequent and severe weather causing droughts and flooding that are devastating crops and increasing the risk of disease outbreaks. This is all aggravating an already dire situation for a population that has been dealing with brutal conflict for nearly three decades.
Children are paying the heaviest price of this devastating crisis. Click below to learn more.
Marie*, 10 and her younger brother Antho*, 1, live in Kasai with their auntie Riva*. Like many families across DRC, conflict, climate change and epidemics like Covid-19 and cholera have left them food insecure.
They were unable to access nutritious food resulting in Antho* becoming severely malnourished.
Save the Children set up a health centre in Antho’s village, where they trained the community workers to screen and treat Severe Acute Malnutrition.
After assessing Antho, they were able to provide "Plumpy Nut", a high-energy, high-nutrient peanut paste. Maria* helps her younger brother by feeding him and she hopes he will make a full recovery soon.
Save the Children started working in the DRC in 1994. We are currently working with 13 local partners, as well as international partners and government authorities, to deliver critical health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education support to children and their families.
In 2023, we reached 2.7 million people, including 1 million children through both development and humanitarian interventions.
We’re providing safe drinking water, treating sick children suffering from pneumonia, malaria, diarrhoea, and other illnesses, distributing food and, treating and screening children for malnutrition, Our community-led approach in the country has also allowed us to treat cases of malnutrition locally before life-threatening complications develop.
We’re providing child protection services, helping children access education and supporting survivors of gender-based violence and children formally associated with armed groups.
We have also been helping build communities’ resilience to food insecurity by encouraging sustainable farming and supporting farming families who have been uprooted from their homes to restart agricultural income-generating activities in their areas of displacement.
Please donate to our Children's Emergency Fund to help children like Antho*
