WFP says there is a “deepening hunger crisis” and that food aid may have to be suspended due to record funding shortfalls.
Published November 7, 2025
The number of people facing emergency levels of hunger in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has almost doubled since last year, the United Nations has warned.
The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) said on Friday that there was a “deepening hunger crisis” in the region, but warned that it was only able to help a fraction of those in need due to severe funding shortages and difficult access.
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“Our funding is at a historically low level. This year we probably received about $150 million,” said Cynthia Jones, WFP country director for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, pointing to the need for $350 million to help people in desperate need in the West African country.
“One in three people in the eastern DRC provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika are facing critical or higher levels of hunger – more than 10 million people,” Jones said.
“Of these, an astonishing 3 million people are experiencing emergency levels of hunger,” she told a media briefing in Geneva.
He said this rising level means people are facing extreme disparities in food consumption and very high levels of malnutrition, adding that the number of people facing emergency levels of hunger is rapidly increasing.
“It’s almost double compared to last year,” Jones said. “People are already dying of hunger.”
long-standing conflict
The region has been rocked by more than a year of fighting. The Rwandan-backed armed group M23 has occupied large swathes of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since taking up arms again in 2021, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis and more than three decades of conflict in the region.
The armed group’s blitzkrieg captured the main cities of Goma and Bukavu in the east, near the border with Rwanda. They established a government in the area parallel to that of Kinshasa and took control of the nearby mines.
Rwanda denies supporting the rebels. Both M23 and the Congolese army have been accused of atrocities.
Mr Jones said WFP was facing a “complete suspension of all emergency food assistance in the eastern states” from February or March 2026.
She added that two airports in the east, Goma and Bukavu, have been closed for months.
WFP wants to establish an air link between neighboring Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, saying it would be safer, faster and more effective than the route from Kinshasa on the other side of the vast country.
In recent years, WFP has received up to $600 million in funding. In 2024, it received approximately $380 million.
U.N. agencies, including WFP, have been hit by sharp cuts in U.S. foreign aid and other major European donors cutting their foreign aid budgets to increase defense spending.
