Internally displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Large-scale displacement in the DR Congo has its roots in the First (1996–1997) and Second Congo Wars (1998–2003), but contemporary refugee flows are primarily driven by ongoing violence in the Kivu and Ituri regions. Armed conflict is the main driver of internal displacement, accounting for an estimated 85 percent of all movements.^[5]

Within this broad category, factors such as land disputes also play an important role in prompting people to flee. Strong population growth has increased pressure on land, particularly in conflict affected areas where insecurity has caused large scale displacement. Competition over land has led to disputes between displaced people and host communities, which in turn heighten existing protection risks, including limited access to services and education, exposure to exploitation and widespread gender based violence.^[6]

The Kivu conflict is an umbrella term for a series of protracted armed confrontations in North Kivu and South Kivu in eastern DR Congo that have taken place since the end of the Second Congo War. It has broadly consisted of three phases: June 2004^[7] – February 2009;^[8] April 2012 – November 2013;^[9] and January 2015^[10] to the present. Each phase of the conflict included serious abuses and violence against civilians,^[11] but violence did not cease between these phases.^[12][13] The conflict also led to the destruction of many communities and caused severe damage to essential facilities such as schools, hospitals and clinics.^[14]

The Ituri conflict is an ongoing low intensity asymmetrical conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the two groups had fought since as early as 1972,^[15] there was a period of intense violence between 1999 and 2003.^[16] Armed conflict continues to the present day.

Since 2018, violence in Ituri has surged, with Lendu militias carrying out widespread attacks on Hema communities, involving killings, sexual violence and the destruction of villages.^[17] President Félix Tshisekedi condemned the renewed violence in 2019 as an attempted genocide,^[18] and in early 2020, the United Nations described the abuses as crimes against humanity.^[17]

By October 2025, at the national level, around 15% of internally displaced people were uprooted by natural disasters such as floods and landslides. Examples of these were the 2019-2020 flooding of the Congo river^[5] and the 2023 African Great Lakes floods.^[19][20]

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The issue has been ongoing for many years, with millions of displaced persons forced from their homes, often repeatedly.^[21]

Despite a large population of IDPs, humanitarian aid has been very limited, with outbreaks of cholera and measles on top of the issues with violence.^[22] The Norwegian Refugee Council has characterized the situation in the DRC as the world's most neglected displacement crisis.^[23] The regional coordinator of Médecins Sans Frontières has said the humanitarian response to the conflict is far short of the scale of the problem.^[24]

Displaced persons often flee to temporary camps. Residents of such camps can be subject to physical violence, such as repeated deadly attacks against internally displaced people in Ituri Province by the armed group CODECO, such as the Plaine Savo massacre.^[25][26] Residents of displacement camps are subject to an elevated risk of sexual violence, as noted by Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege.^[27][28]

From July 2016 to March 2017, nearly half a million were displaced by the Batwa–Luba clashes in Tanganyika Province.^[29]

In 2017, violence related to the Kamwina Nsapu rebellion displaced 1.4 million people in the Kasaï region in central DRC.^[30][31]

In North Kivu province, from 2014 to 2016, the governor of the province made efforts to close the IDP camps, surmising that the camps were hotbeds for rebel activity and were connected to a lack of local oversight of the NGOs. This brought the number of IDP camps in the province to 47, down from 60.^[32]

At the end of 2020, the security situation remained unstable, marked by ongoing inter-ethnic violence and armed attacks, especially in the east. As a result, more than 5.2 million people were internally displaced, making it the largest IDP crisis in Africa and one of the world’s most severe and protracted humanitarian emergencies.^[33]

In 2022, rising violence in the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu worsened the already fragile security situation in the DRC, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and causing many deaths.^[3]

As of 2023, the population of the North Kivu camps had increased again, with some 600,000 people fleeing violence from the M23 offensive and several camps around the city of Goma. The Bulengo camp near Goma alone held over 120,000 people in 2023.^[34] As of December 2023, the country also hosts more than 500,000 refugees from neighbouring states, mainly from Rwanda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Burundi.^[3]

Roughly half of the displaced population is female, half is male. Children make up the largest share at nearly 59%, followed by adults (18-59 y o) at 37% and a small elderly population of just over 4%. More than half of the displaced persons came from North Kivu, almost 40 percent from South Kivu, and a much smaller proportion from Ituri, Tanganyika,^[35] and Maniema.^[36]