The Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria are among the world’s top five countries facing humanitarian crisis in 2020, with Burkina Faso, Burundi and Chad added to the list compiled each year by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

The NGO said Yemen remains the greatest concern, followed by DR Congo as it continues to battle an Ebola outbreak that has claimed 2,234 lives in the country’s east. Next after Syria is Nigeria, where disease outbreak remains among top concerns.

South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Somalia and the Central African Republic are the remaining African nations on the Top 10 list. Other nations rounding out the report’s full list of 20 are on the continent, particularly across the Sahel, with Iraq and Myanmar as the two exceptions. Nearly all of the affected countries named by IRC are in conflict zones and account for 80 percent of the world’s people in need.

“As humanitarians, we can prevent the dying, but it takes politics to stop the killing,” said IRC chief David Miliband. “To truly address these challenges, it is vital that the international community, led by the U.N. Security Council members, take long-term approaches, re-engage their diplomatic muscle to prevent and resolve conflict, and reinvigorate their support of international humanitarian law and accountability for those who violate it.”

Conflict across Africa remains the key issue in a 2020 outlook from the Institute for Security Studies too. Beyond the magnitude of challenges in the Sahel, the ISS notes the fragility of South Sudan’s peace deal and Ethiopia’s communal violence.

Mozambique, the DR Congo, CAR and Nigeria also merit heightened concern, according to the ISS report.

Image: Sudan Change Now file