"Many other refugees are scattered, being hosted in the city by some relatives or friends, so that it is difficult for us to understand how many people have actually reached Goma." Certainly, this displacement is the latest in a series of migration waves that further contributes to worsening the humanitarian situation in the country." According to the AVSI humanitarian worker, who has been living in Congo for five years, "before last week’s episodes, the refugees in North Kivu were about 800-900 thousand. Now they are certainly over a million." "I have heard some figures like one million sixty thousand or two millions refugees, but I think it is an overestimation," says Mr Tagliani. "I think a more realistic figure will be one million one hundred/one million two hundred refugees, which is still alarming." Now "all the major UN agencies and all the major NGOs are working in the area trying to coordinate the efforts to assist refugees." A serious problem is that "the stocks, namely those of food, are not sufficient for the whole population," explains the AVSI humanitarian worker.
