Humanitarian situation in DRC ‘worst we have ever seen’ warns senior UN official

People flee fighting between M23 rebels and Congolese forces near Kibumba, some 12 miles north of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Moses Sawasawa/AP)

Eight million people are in urgent need of assistance in conflict-wracked eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo with women and girls subjected to sexual violence on a massive scale, according to a senior UN official.

UN humanitarian office operations director Edem Wororu said a visit to the African country was “shocking, heart-breaking and sobering” and had deteriorated alarmingly in the last 18 months.