Aid could be provided more easily if air access was restored, the WFP insisted, as two airports in the M23 areas “have basically been closed since late January… we are urgently calling for a humanitarian air corridor to be established,” said Cynthia Jones, WFP Director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The alert follows the publication of a report by UN-backed food insecurity experts on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) platform, warning that nearly 25 million people are experiencing high levels of food insecurity, called IPC3 on a scale of one to five, five of which indicate famine.
This includes an alarming three million people facing “emergency” hunger levels (CPI4), a figure that is “rising” and is “almost double what it was last year”, Ms Jones said.
“What does this mean for families? It means they skip meals, depleting all the assets in their home. They are selling their animals.“he said, speaking by video from Kinshasa to journalists in Geneva.
According to the UN agency, “people are already dying of hunger” in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ms Jones noted that fighting between M23 militias and DRC government forces continues, causing further displacement and people “forced to leave their homes again and again”.
In the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, This has left around 5.2 million people displaced “including 1.6 million who have been displaced this year alone.”making the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the largest displaced persons crises in the world,” the WFP official added.
Despite rising hunger, funds for life-saving humanitarian work are running out and the UN agency has been forced to reduce the number of people it helps, from around one million at the start of the year, to 600,000 now.
“We will only be able to help a fraction of those in need” move forward, Ms Jones said, in an appeal for $350 million to support emergency food and nutrition assistance over the next six months. “Without it, we will have to make more cuts to reduce (assistance) even further, down to 300,000, which is only 10 percent of the three million who need it.”
Without a significant increase in funding, the WFP warned of a “complete supply disruption” of aid by March 2026.
“That means a complete cessation of all emergency food assistance in the eastern provinces.”
The serious funding shortfall has also affected the agency internally. “We are starting to close offices downtown, we are reducing our footprint, the number of staff and juggling maintaining operational capacity to deliver in a very complex environment,” Ms Jones explained.
And yet, humanitarian assistance remains vital for displaced people in the eastern provinces, including North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika, because vital services have closed amid the current insecurity.
“The banks are closed, there is no money available and this has had a major impact on the population and the humanitarian response,” Ms Jones explained. “It has devastated livelihoods and really put the food security of the people affected in very, very dire circumstances.”
As the conflict drags on, families seek refuge in urban centers like Ituri, where host communities are already struggling to cope. Equally worrying is the fact that millions of subsistence farmers forced from their homes or too afraid to access their land have missed the planting season this year.
“Women, children and men have just suffered devastating sequences of violence, perpetrated by non-state armed groups and fleeing conflict. They are tired, exhausted and need peace,” Ms Jones insisted.