Clock ticks to hunger, sickness and death

Helen O’Neill, of Médecins Sans Frontières, describes the deteriorating situation in Congo and stresses the need for the violence to stop, so the growing humanitarian crisis can be managed.

THE situation in the eastern Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of Congo is rapidly deteriorating and it’s changing hour by hour.

Repeatedly displaced by conflict, the people I met in Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinics, in the camps or by the roadside were already sick, exhausted and frightened. Now, tragically, people are being forced, in their thousands, to flee for their lives yet again.