Congo’s Katanga Province in ‘Humanitarian Crisis,’ UN Says

Democratic Republic of Congo’s copper-rich Katanga province is in an “acute humanitarian crisis” amid resurgent fighting between local militias and the army, the United Nations humanitarian agency said.

Civilians have been subject to “deliberate attacks, assassinations, burning of villages, child recruitment, rapes, and illegal taxation,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed report today. The number of displaced people in the southeastern province has increased sixfold since January 2012 to 316,000, it said.