Decades of armed conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), political unrest and insecurity have resulted in a complex humanitarian crisis. Since April 2016, the conflict in the Kasai region of DRC has been escalating, causing widespread displacements and the loss of livelihoods. An estimated 762,000 people are internally displaced. Due to the conflict in Kasai, 33,500 people have fled to neighboring Angola and Zambia as refugees. In addition, 2 million people are internally displaced in the Kivus and Tanganyika regions.

Accordingly, DRC’s status was elevated to a humanitarian system-wide emergency by the Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) was activated on 20 November 2017.

The ETC is providing shared security telecommunications services to support humanitarian operations in the Kasai region, South Kivu and Tanganyika . These services are available in Kananga and Tshikapa (Kasai-Occidental), Mbuji-Mayi (Kasai-Oriental), Bukavu (South Kivu) and in Kalemie (Tanganyika).