In total, 1,297 households of displaced persons have been living in precarious conditions for more than a year in the sites for displaced persons in Bihito in the territory of Masisi (North Kivu). Five people, including two children, have died of disease and malnutrition in the past two months, concordant sources said Monday, August 21 in Masisi-Centre.
Local civil society sources, confirmed by the Bihito camp youth committee, specify that these displaced persons came from the localities of Karenga in the Bashali Mokoto groupement and from the village of Burungu.
The others arrived in this site from Kiwanja in Rutshuru territory.
The same sources confirm that they have been living there for six months and that most of them live in schools, notably those of Musoro, Bujiri and the Lushebere Institute.
Télésphore Mitondeke, from the civil society of Masisi territory, speaks of a situation that is extremely serious:
“We must highlight the cases of deaths, there are children who are dying, these children are dying of hunger. There is also a rate of malnutrition which has taken off”.
The situation is the same in all the other IDP sites across Masisi territory.
Most of the local actors contacted fear a complicated back-to-school season in several towns in Masisi; in view of the number of displaced persons and entities deserted by the inhabitants following the persistence of insecurity.