CONGO (DRC): The number of civilians uprooted by fighting in the eastern DRC this year has risen dramatically over the past week, with an additional 30,000 to 35,000 people displaced as of today beyond the more than 50,000 already reported, according to UNICEF. The area most affected is the territory of Djugu, just north of Bunia, capital of the Ituri region. Villages have been looted and burned down by armed factions linked to different ethnic groups. Interviews with terrified civilians confirm that there have been widespread killings, rapes, and looting, UNICEF said. "We need to bring the same sense of urgency to the Congo that we brought to the tsunami, in order to stop the killing of children," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy declared, referring to the Indian Ocean disaster which brought a massive outpouring of international aid to the dozen devastated countries. The latest fighting between Lendu and Hema militias is part of a larger conflict in the DRC, one of the bloodiest the world has known since World War II, in which some 3.8 million people are thought to have been killed in less than six years, the vast majority of them civilians and the majority of these most probably children.
