UN urges more efforts to end conflicts in Africa’s Great Lakes region

The United Nations (UN) and aid agencies have urged the international community to “re-double efforts” to end conflict and instability in five African nations in the Great Lakes region, namely the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Burundi.
The UN resident and humanitarian coordinators from nine countries in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, such as Burundi, Djibouti, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Somalia, met on Monday in Nairobi to discuss humanitarian risks in these areas. “A further deterioration of humanitarian conditions could undermine security and development gains made in the region and beyond. Many people currently attempting to cross the Mediterranean are fleeing conflicts and repression in this region,” a joint statement from the international agencies said. The agencies called on the world to work with banks and money transfer organizations to put in place a transitional mechanism until a proper financial system is in place in Somalia. They also urged the international [community] to continue hosting asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and ensure their protection and safety. Despite economic growth and progress towards meeting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, the region is home to some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, they said. The risk of escalating violence in Burundi which has already displaced more than 112,000 people to neighboring states, the armed conflict in Yemen and a rapid intensification of the conflict in South Sudan and the potential for an economic collapse, are of particular concern, they added. Conflict, the agencies noted, continues unabated in parts of Sudan, Somalia and DR Congo, and there has been a sharp increase in inter-communal conflict in the Rift Valley in Kenya since the beginning of the year.