GENEVA, Nov 7, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The number of people facing emergency levels of hunger in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has nearly doubled since last year, the United Nations said Friday.

The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said a "deepening hunger crisis" was unfolding in the region, but warned it was only able to reach a fraction of those in need due to acute funding shortages and access difficulties.

"One in three people in DRC's eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri, and Tanganyika are facing crisis levels of hunger or worse. That's over 10 million people," said Cynthia Jones, the WFP's DR Congo country director.

"Of that, an alarming three million people are in emergency levels of hunger," she told a media briefing in Geneva.

She said this higher level meant people were facing extreme gaps in food consumption and very high levels of malnutrition.

"The numbers of people that are facing emergency levels of hunger is surging. It has almost doubled since last year," said Jones.

"People are already dying of hunger," she added.

With Rwanda's help, the M23 militia has seized swathes of the eastern DRC since taking up arms again in 2021, compounding a humanitarian crisis and the more than three-decade conflict in the region.

The armed group's lightning offensive saw it capture the key eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu, near the border with Rwanda. It has set up an administration there parallel to the government in Kinshasa and taken control of nearby mines.

Jones said the WFP urgently needed $349 million to continue delivering emergency food and nutrition assistance over the next six months.

It was facing "a complete halt of all emergency food assistance in the eastern provinces" from February or March 2026, she said.

Jones added that the two airports in the east, Goma and Bukavu, had been shut for months.

WFP wants an air bridge set up between neighbouring Rwanda and the eastern DRC, saying it would be a safer, faster and more effective route than from Kinshasa, on the other side of the vast nation.