The United Nations' refugee agency on Sunday airlifted its first batch of relief supplies to the more than 11,000 people on Angola's northern border fleeing the latest violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN said that more than a million civilians have been displaced inside the DRC since a brutal conflict broke out in the Kasai region in mid-2016, with about 25,000 asylum seekers crossing into Angola. "Arrivals are in urgent need of life-saving assistance, including food, water, shelter and medical services," the UN Refugee Agency's (UNHCR) southern Africa representative, Sharon Cooper, said in a statement. The U.N. said it would send more relief items to Angola in the coming days. A UN team of investigators said this month that it had uncovered 40 mass grave sites and killings of more than 400 people in Kasai.

Source: The Star April 30, 2017 12:22 UTC