Democratic Republic of Congo: Internally Displaced Persons and Returnees (as of 31 December 2017)

As of December 31, 2017, the Democratic Republic of Congo had the largest displaced population in Africa with more than 4.49 million internally displaced persons, including 2.7 million children. Since January 2017, every hour of every day, nearly 50 Congolese families have been forced to flee their homes. With respect to absolute numbers of IDPs, the province of North Kivu has been the most affected with nearly 27 families of IDPs per hour per day in 2017, followed by Tanganyika (23) and South Kivu (12). The rate of displacement has increased significantly with more than 2 million displaced in 2017 alone, a doubling of the total number of IDPs from 2016. Last quarter, almost 16,000 IDPs were registered (mainly in the Tanganiyka province) and some 27,000 returned home. The Kasai region has had the largest population of returnees (605,000) in the last 18 months.