Children losing out in Congo conflict, warns World Vision

The unrelenting fight between the rebel force loyal to Laurent Nkunda and the pro-government militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has led to renewed calls for more humanitarian aid and UN peacekeeping troops this week.

Aid groups are reporting widespread hunger and food insecurity in conflict-affected regions of the central African nation that has been at war since 1997.

International humanitarian group World Vision reported that the number of children suffering from malnutrition has soared as a result of increased conflict, with one hard-hit area seeing a ten-fold increase in the number of children under the age of five who are malnourished.

"The cause of malnutrition used to be poverty," said Suzanne Kahamba, a local nurse working at the World Vision nutrition centre in the DRC. "But now so many people are displaced, they don't have land to grow crops. The conflict has intensified the effects of poverty ten times over and the situation has become dire."

Before the conflict, nutrition experts admitted about one or two malnourished children per day at the World Vision nutrition center in Rwanguba in eastern Congo. Since the fighting affected the area, between eight and ten children have been arriving every day.

World Vision calls the conflict raging in DRC the deadliest since World War II.

"The last decade of conflict has resulted in some 4 million deaths; an estimated 1,200 people die every day due to ongoing epidemics and war-related causes; some aid agencies estimate upward of 1,400 deaths per day," the Christian aid group said in a statement.

World Vision reported this week that it was finally able to deliver therapeutic food for children at the clinic. Fighting in the area had cut the center off from aid for nearly three weeks.

The Christian ministry will also provide more than 100 tonnes of food to affected communities over six months, including beans and maize to almost 4,500 people.

Congo has a long and bloody history of fighting, but it was in August that the conflict between Nkunda and government forces intensified.

Rebel leader Nkunda and his National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) force claim they are fighting to protect Tutsis from Hutus who escaped to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

But critics accuse Nkunda of using that as an excuse to hide his real motive of gaining power. His troops have taken control of land masses in eastern Congo.