Oxfam is there

Oxfam is planning to double its aid effort and help nearly 110,000 people caught up in the recent upsurge of fighting in eastern Congo.

We currently work in four camps in Goma, supplying clean water and sanitation to 65,000 people. We are also trucking water to 20,000 people in Kanyabayonga to the north of Goma.

In pictures: Oxfam in action

Our staff have been assessing several camps to the north and west of Goma as part of a scale-up process.

On film: Conflict in D.R. Congo

Working in camps for displaced people

Our work includes:

• Providing water and sanitation facilities
• Promoting good health and hygiene practices

In pictures: Preventing the spread of disease

Aiding recovery

We are working across the country to help longer term recovery. We are:

• Providing water and sanitation facilities to communities
• Improving basic education
• Undertaking peace building projects
• Enabling people to start making a living again
• Helping to reintegrate refugees back into their communities

Campaigning and lobbying

The UN’s peacekeeping force, MONUC, has struggled to keep the peace and protect civilians forced from their homes. Oxfam is calling for more troops - particularly from the European Union - to support UN peacekeeping operations in D.R. Congo.

Oxfam calls on EU to send more troops to Congo

The situation in D.R. Congo is fast-moving and Oxfam will continue to use its influence at a national and international level to help ensure that the people of D.R. Congo get the support they need to return home and rebuild their lives.

Donate to Oxfam's work in D.R. Congo

Learn more

• Background to the conflict

An unimaginable situation

• An estimated 5.4 million people dead since 1998
• Around 1 million people made homeless
• Rape used as a systematic weapon of war

At least 100 civilians have been killed and more than 200 wounded since combat resumed in late August 2008 between the forces of the rebel commander Laurent Nkunda and Congolese army soldiers. Many of those killed were trapped in combat zones, unable to flee, while others were deliberately killed by combatants.

An estimated 250,000 civilians have been forced from their homes. According to assessments carried out by Oxfam, there has been an increase in incidents of forced labour, rape, and widespread brutality as armed men from all sides prey upon those who have sought 'sanctuary' from the fighting in North Kivu.

The five-year conflict

The 1998-2003 conflict in the D.R. Congo saw huge loss of life. Four million people died, some as a direct result of the violence, but many more from starvation and disease.

The war was between government forces, backed by Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and rebel factions, supported by Rwanda and Uganda.

Fighting was fuelled by the D.R. Congo’s vast mineral resources and by the flow of small arms into the country.

Continued instability

Despite the signing of a peace deal in 2002, and democratic elections in 2006, there is still instability in the east of the country.

A quarter of a million people have been forced to flee their homes since late August 2008 as a result of intense fighting between the forces of rebel general Laurent Nkunda and Congolese army soldiers and their allied militia. People have dispersed over a vast, inhospitable area without access to shelter, water, food, and medicines.

The fighting has severely hampered the ability of aid agencies to reach those in need.

Voices from D.R. Congo: Meet people displaced by the conflict

A long way to go

Helping communities rebuild their lives is a major task.

• Up to 1 million people have been living in camps for displaced people within the D.R. Congo
• A million more people sought refuge in neighbouring Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi
• People have lost virtually everything – family, friends, homes and their means of making a living
• Rebel troops need to be reintegrated into the army
• The systematic practice of rape and sexual slavery has led to the rapid advance of HIV and AIDS