French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the airport in Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, will reopen to humanitarian flights, months after it was closed when the city was seized by the M23 armed group. The announcement was made at a conference in Paris aimed at supporting peace and prosperity in Africa’s crisis-hit Great Lakes region, encompassing the eastern DRC and surrounding countries. Millions of people are facing hunger in the DRC, which has been hit hard by a sharp drop in foreign aid, the United Nations warned on Thursday, as the United States and other wealthy nations dramatically scale back international assistance.The conference mobilised more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in international aid for the region, Macron announced. “We cannot remain silent spectators of the tragedy unfolding in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Macron said at the closing of the international conference co-hosted with Togo, adding the aid includes medicines and food.The United Nations’ appeal for around $2.5 billion in humanitarian assistance for DRC had so far only been 16 percent funded. The DRC is rich in natural resources, especially lucrative minerals. But three decades of conflict in the country’s northeast, as different factions fight over the resources, have claimed millions of lives and left the region ravaged.Violence has intensified since 2021 with the resurgence of the anti-government M23, which the UN says is supported by neighbouring Rwanda and its army — charges denied by Rwanda.The M23 seized the major cities of Goma in January and Bukavu in February, closing off access to Goma’s airport. The key airport would open “in the coming weeks” for humanitarian flights along with secure corridors for aid delivery, Macron said. “This access is essential and will be carried out respecting Congolese sovereignty so that the first humanitarian flights can resume without delay,” he added.Rwanda’s Foreign Minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, expressed doubt, however.”Paris cannot reopen an airport, as the primary stakeholders are absent,” he told reporters, referring to the M23 group, which was not invited to the Paris conference. He said the issue should be discussed within the framework of the negotiations in Qatar between DRC authorities and the anti-government group.- ‘Forgotten’ crisis -Humanitarian organisations welcomed the potential reopening but remained cautious. “We would be very happy to use Goma airport, but it’s not the only obstacle preventing aid from arriving,” said Kevin Goldberg, director of non-governmental organisation Solidarites International, noting that ground transportation is crucial. NGOs have been calling for secure humanitarian corridors to be reopened to affected areas of the vast central African country.More than 21 million people need humanitarian aid in the DRC — nearly one-fifth of the population, NGO Oxfam France said this month.The DRC is experiencing “one of the most serious and forgotten humanitarian crises in the world” and it “continues to worsen”, the aid charity said.More than 1.6 million people have had to flee their homes since the beginning of the year, bringing the total number of internally displaced people to 5.2 million.President Faure Gnassingbe of Togo, the African Union’s mediator for the Great Lakes region, called for transparency regarding humanitarian aid at the conference, where around sixty countries and organisations were represented.”Aid must alleviate suffering without fostering dependency, stabilise without freezing power dynamics. That is why, to protect the benefits of aid and those who deliver it, stronger African oversight is needed,” he said.
