Humanitarian Aid for DRC

M23 rebels have taken control of a stretch roughly the distance between Sydney and Port Macquarie. With estimates of about a million people displaced in the east of DRC, Anglican Aid is working with our trusted partners Life in Abundance and the Anglican Church to provide people in need with emergency aid.

These local Christians are helping displaced people find shelter in church buildings or with other Christian families – nearly 5,000 people. They asked us to help. 

Together, we’re providing:  

• Corn flour, rice, beans, and cooking oil  
• Clothes  
• Sanitary items  
• Medicine  

to people most in need in Goma and Bukavu.

Our brothers and sisters on the ground are caring for the spiritual and emotional needs of those affected too. With help from Anglican Aid, they’re setting up trauma counselling workshops, and offering God’s comfort through prayer.

If this appeal is oversubscribed, funds will be used for a similar activity or in a similar place.

Bishop Martin Gordon in Goma told us about the effects of the fighting:

“Many thousands have been injured, and hospitals are overwhelmed. Children are missing out on school as a result of the recent fighting with the closure of 2,500 schools in North and South Kivu. There is widespread sexual violence, theft, and looting.

“Those being forced to return home from the IDP camps have found their homes are no longer there and that they are not safe. The banks remain closed with increasing security and humanitarian risks.

“During the few days of fighting to take control of the city, many clergy said they were scared, were hiding in their houses, under tables and beds, that they could hear bullets but didn’t know what was going on.

Many asked why the world was looking the other way.”

Anglican Aid CEO, Tim Swan, asks for prayer for DRC:

“I received some distressing photos from our partners in DRC. We had asked what their situation is, what they are seeing there. And what they showed us was truly horrifying. Mass graves. Men and women with terrible wounds, lying on stretchers. A baby still clinging to it’s mother, who had been slain in the streets.

“I am grieved to the core.

“Anglican Aid has trusted long-term partners in Goma and Bukavu, many of whom I visited and prayed with when I travelled there in 2023. We have sponsored dozens of Bible college students there, and helped others provide for their families through our micro-finance project.

“Pray that our Lord will bring comfort and strength to our Christian brothers and sisters. Pray that they may spread the hope of justice and peace that the Lord will bring at his coming.”

Reference: Al Jazeera – M23 rebels resume attacks in DR Congo after two day pause

Reuters – M23 rebels advance into eastern Congo’s strategic city of Bukavu

BBC – Gunfire and looting in DR Congo city as rebels advance