Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has witnessed a renewed spike in atrocities in jap Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s Ituri province, the put our scientific teams are providing like civilians with horrific injuries. In a fresh represent launched this day, Risking Their Lives to Dwell on, MSF underscores the extraordinary needs of many communities endangered by fresh assaults, increased displacement, and reduced humanitarian succor.
Risking their lives to survive pdf — 12.31 MB Obtain
For decades, individuals in Ituri – in the northeast of DRC – contain been both instruct targets and handled as collateral pain in a fancy struggle characterised by violence, ethnic divisions, and the participation of diverse armed groups. This struggle has also very a lot hampered secure genuine of entry to to healthcare and the formula for families to feed themselves, whereas the restricted provision of humanitarian succor has precipitated extra suffering amongst a community that already will get diminutive international consideration.
MSF calls on all declare and non-declare armed groups in Ituri to spare civilians, besides as healthcare facilities, that are sanctuaries well-known to the survival of local communities.
Violence in Ituri has displaced around 100,000 individuals since the beginning of the three hundred and sixty five days, according to the UN.1 In January and February on my own, it also reported an intensification of violence against civilians, with assaults leaving greater than 200 individuals pointless and dozens injured. In February, MSF’s scientific teams handled formative years as young as four and pregnant women for machete and gunshot wounds, following militia assaults in Djugu territory.
“These most recent attacks follow decades of violence and its devastating consequences for civilians, including women and children in Ituri,” acknowledged Alira Halidou, MSF head of mission in DRC. “The crisis here is characterised by repeated displacement, in which violence forces civilians to pick up and start their lives over, again and again. What is worse, is that the stories patients and communities tell us represent only the tip of the iceberg.”
A girl prepares food exterior her refuge in the Gengere 1 refugee camp. Ituri province, DRC, January 2025. © Fanny Hostettler/MSF
Hindering secure genuine of entry to to healthcare
Ideal a puny proportion of individuals can secure genuine of entry to healthcare in Ituri, the put health facilities also tumble prey to assaults. In Djugu territory, the Fataki celebrated scientific institution was obliged to slump its actions and evacuate patients in mid-March following armed community threats. This closure impacts thousands of individuals, left without secure genuine of entry to to medical institution treatment.
In Drodro health zone, also in Djugu, virtually 50 per cent of healthcare centres contain been in part or fully destroyed and contain needed to be relocated. When violence escalated this time remaining three hundred and sixty five days, a patient was killed in her bed in an armed attack on Drodro’s celebrated scientific institution.
Now not handiest close these assaults obtain patients reluctant to lunge to scientific facilities, however in addition they put scientific workers in distress. One physician interviewed for the represent recounted how, when a health centre was forced to shut down for 2 months, he silent went in to ruin caesarean sections.
“It was dangerous, and I was risking my life, but we didn’t have a choice,” acknowledged the physician. “We had to sneak there with the women, otherwise they would have died.”
Targeting basically the most vulnerable
Greater than half of of the 39 victims of violence MSF handled at Salama clinic, Bunia, up except mid-March 2025 had been women and formative years. One mother, whose four-three hundred and sixty five days-historical child was injured, misplaced her 6-month-historical infant and her husband during an attack wielded by machete. Two sisters worn four and 16 took machete blows to the pinnacle and palms, and their mother (eight months’ pregnant) was also severely injured by a number of machete wounds. We handled a nine-three hundred and sixty five days-historical boy with a gunshot damage to the abdomen, who had witnessed assailants attack and ruin his mother and two siblings by machete.
When civilians take into account refuge in displacement camps, they’re silent now not secure. In one instance in September 2024, our teams handled 5 civilians with bullet wounds following an attack on Plaine Savo camp, in Fataki health zone.
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When there would possibly perhaps be an upsurge in assaults against civilians, the amount of victims of sexual violence coming to MSF facilities also increases. Girls folk in explicit face attack, as they lunge out in search of solution to feed themselves and their families. In Drodro, in 2023 and 2024, around 84 per cent of the victims of sexual violence handled by MSF had been attacked whereas working in fields, collecting firewood, or on the boulevard.
Exacerbating unmet needs
Regardless of the efforts of the Ministry of Health, MSF, and other humanitarian organisations, individuals’s needs very noteworthy exceed the property accessible. Food insecurity worsened sharply in Ituri in 2024 and is now continual for 43 per cent of individuals. Unfortunate hygiene stipulations and historical shelters in displacement camps indicate that diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases unfold without problems, affecting formative years below 5 basically the most.
Folks in Ituri can also silent be guaranteed secure secure genuine of entry to to healthcare and mustn’t be forced to possibility their lives in search of food and other needs.
