Between 10,000 and 15,000 people fleeing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have crossed into Burundi over the last few days, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
Footage filmed by the UNHCR shows displaced Congolese people crossing the Rusizi River into Burundi, and large groups of people sheltering in refugee camps in Burundi.
According to translation provided by the UNHCR, the first woman speaking in the footage, a displaced Congolese person named Timiza, says: “We fled fighting, we heard gunshots were all over and decided to leave. Some of the children got lost in the process. We got separated from them. God helped us, we found people who helped us cross the river and reach the camp.”
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The UNHCR said that the situation in the eastern DRC remained “challenging,” with more than 150,000 people forced to flee from South Kivu, where the most recent clashes are taking place. Credit: UNHCR via Storyful
Video Transcript
He lho isn’t?
Loads Happy Happy you?
Amhm si.
A has come out from.
Eh.
We are scattered we leave the kids there.
This and by how God will help us into the river, he is bringing us.
Come here to we are here in Mkambi.
Kate Miradhi.
We ask for food, we ask that we help us and help us and we will cover ourselves.
Okay recently it ended up here here and at the beginning of the morning I was sleeping here until we didn’t all eat it.
Nothing yours.
No vegetables.
Msamar gives me this Bunga this here is what I am moving.
M. Almost eighty thousand eighteen thousand people are here.
Most of them are women, children, a lot of children.
We need we need help, we need the assistance of the whole community.
Here I can I’m very pleased to say that some association, local association are doing their best to provide hot meal and so on to the population but it’s not enough.
We need more and we need the support of the international community to support this population, to support the government of Burundi.
Alice.