It’s asking for $88 million immediately for emergency aid in violence-torn Kasai province – half of which will be spent on child nutrition.

UNICEF says 770 000 children in Kasai province are malnourished and 400 000 of them are at risk of death from hunger.

Violence in the province has forced more than a million people from their homes and displaced 4,5 million more.

The Congolese government disputes this.

It boycotted a donor conference in Geneva last month that raised only a fraction of its $1,7-billion target.

UNICEF says people are risking returning home, making it easier to access those in need of food, healthcare, safe drinking water and education. 

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Of particular concern are more than 400 000 children under five suffering acute malnutrition.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the World Food Programme and the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF say conflict in Kasai province has caused farmers to miss three consecutive planting seasons.

750 000 people remain displaced.

620 000 returned to their burned out farms having hidden for years in the forest.

The agencies are making a public appeal for help because fewer than half a million of the 3,2 million food insecure people in Kasai have been getting help.

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The UN body says three-and-a half million people are experiencing very severe hunger.

The Democratic Republic of Congo suffers the highest burden of displaced people in Africa.

Fighting in Kasai province caused by an ongoing rebellion instigated by the Kamwina Nsapu militia against DRC state security forces has killed more than 3 000 people this past year and displaced one-and-a-half million.

Whole villages have been destroyed and the World Health Organization draws comparisons between the Congolese victims of the conflict  with those of humanitarian victims in Syria and Yemen.

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