Recently, catastrophic flooding has plunged large swaths of Kinshasa, DRC, into chaos, leaving at least 33 dead and thousands displaced. This is after the N’Djili River burst its banks on April 5-6, cutting off access to more than half of the megacity which is mostly swallowed by floodwaters, affecting approximately 17.8 million people.
Caritas Congo, the humanitarian arm of the Catholic Church in DRC, conducted emergency assessments in the hardest-hit municipalities of Limete, N’Djili, and Masina. The involved teams encountered devastating scenes, including submerged homes, destroyed livelihoods, and, in one particularly grim discovery, a lifeless body still awaiting retrieval in the Ndanu neighborhood.
Mr. Tshimanga, a Caritas field agent who became a victim himself, described the terrifying ordeal of returning from the hospital with his wife to find their home rapidly flooding. “The water reached our knees within minutes,” he recounted. “We spent two nights on the roof – alive, but everything we owned was destroyed.”
The human toll continues to mount, with displaced families now facing secondary threats of waterborne diseases and malnutrition. Alice Ngalula, a mother of three from Masina’s Abattoir district, spoke of her narrow escape with only her children. “There was no time to save anything,” she said. “Now we have no home, no help, and my children are getting sick.”
The National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) has expressed spiritual solidarity with victims while Caritas ramps up its emergency response. However, with more rains forecast and much of the city still underwater, humanitarian workers warn the crisis is far from over.
Caritas has issued an urgent appeal for international support, stressing that without immediate assistance, Kinshasa’s flood victims face prolonged suffering in the aftermath of this disaster.
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