Regional Refugee Response Plan: Democratic Republic of the Congo Situation – 2020 Final Report
SITUATION OVERVIEW
The 2020-2021 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRRP) brings together 76 partner organizations across seven countries. As of 31 December 2020, 758,320 refugees and asylum-seekers from the DRC were hosted in the seven countries that are part of the DRC RRRP:
Angola, Burundi, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia. Thousands more are hosted further afield in Southern Africa and elsewhere on the continent. By the end of 2020, the number of refugees and asylum-seekers from the DRC hosted in the seven RRRP countries increased by 32,276, as compared to the previous year.
At the end of 2020, the overall security situation in the DRC remained complex, with continued inter-ethnic conflicts and armed attacks, particularly in the eastern provinces of the country. Increased violence resulted in the continued internal displacement of more than 5.2 million people, according to the 2021 DRC Humanitarian Response Plan. This is the largest IDP situation in Africa and one of the most acute and longstanding humanitarian crises in the world.
Although the rate of outflows from the DRC was lower in 2020 than in previous years, tens of thousands of people still fled across borders and joined refugees from previous waves of violence and insecurity. In 2020, refugees fled mostly from eastern areas of North and South Kivu and Ituri Provinces to Uganda, as well as from Haut Katanga and Tanganyika Provinces to Zambia and other countries in Southern Africa. At the same time, some countries reported a net reduction in the Congolese refugee population attributed to spontaneous returns to the DRC, suggesting a general stability in some areas of origin.
Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees