Six months into Congo’s war, cholera is killing more than four people every day

• Aid cuts and humanitarian deadlock are fuelling a full-blown public health disaster. 

• In Sake and Minova, 500 people are sharing a single water tap.   

Six months since the renewed war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a full-blown public health emergency is accelerating, Oxfam warned today.  

Since January, more than 35,000 suspected cholera cases and at least 852 related deaths have been reported – an average of more than four deaths every day and a 62 percent increase compared to 2024.  

After M23 fighters seized Goma in January civilians were ordered to return to their villages within 72 hours. More than 3.16 million people have since returned back only to find their homes reduced to rubble, and aid system on the verge of collapse. 

Water networks, including storage facilities have been obliterated, leaving families to drink from contaminated streams and stagnant lakes. Basic health services have crumbled, with hospitals out of medicine and sanitation systems in ruins. In some of the hardest-hit areas, like Sake and Minova, 500 people are now sharing a single water tap.  

Dr. Manenji Mangundu, Oxfam’s Director in DRC said: 

“This is a full-blown public health emergency. Families are returning to ruins—no shelters, no toilets, no clean water. In many areas, latrines have been flooded or stripped for firewood, forcing people to defecate in the open and contaminate the only water available. The air reeks of sewage. Hospitals are out of medicine, and we can’t reach cut-off communities with even the most basic aid.” 

In South Kivu’s Uvira region, cholera is surging with 100 new cases being reported each day. Floodwaters from Lake Tanganyika routinely inundate homes and latrines overflow into the lake, even as families are forced to drink lake water.  

The forced closure and destruction of more than 20 displacement sites in Goma alone has left 700,000 people without safe shelter, clean water or basic sanitation In Rusayo, Lushagal, and Bhimba —where Oxfam had been supporting over 100,000 people—entire sites have been razed or abandoned, including more than $700,000 worth of water and sanitation infrastructure, such as pipelines, latrines, and tanks.