Crisis updates from Somalia and Congo

  The IRC is concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and is responding to the rapidly deteriorating situation by providing urgent water and sanitation for tens of thousands of displaced people and the communities that have given them shelter. "Our activities are continuing but we are not able to operate at full capacity, which means that increasing assistance to meet the growing needs is going to be very difficult to achieve," says our Somalia country director Bruce Hickling in a news story posted today on our Web site. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, renewed combat has led to a drastic deterioration in the humanitarian situation. It is the worst fighting since the signing of the Goma peace agreement on January 23.  IRC teams are providing emergency assistance to thousands of recently displaced people sheltering in public buildings or with host families. “It is simply unimaginable what these people are going through,” says Danielle de Knocke van der Meulen, the IRC’s provincial director in Congo's North Kivu province. “Many of those fleeing had already been displaced during earlier waves of violence. You can read the full story, with more from Danielle, here.