With clashes between the government army and the M23 armed rebel group continuing to escalate, multiple nations have issued travel warnings for one central African Nation.
While the constant political violence has always made the Democratic Republic of Congo a high-risk destination, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States all recently updated their warnings. The U.K. and the U.S. gave the country the highest “do not travel” rating.
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This level of warning is usually reserved for war zones and countries with authoritarian governments.
‘Armed groups have attacked military and civilian targets’
On top of raising the advisory level from three to four, the U.S. State Department also announced that any non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families have been ordered to depart the country at the end of January. Most have by now either already departed or been evacuated.
The central African nation is nearly landlocked (a thin eastern stretch touches the Atlantic Ocean) by shared borders with other African countries such as Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia and South Sudan and is rich in natural minerals including copper and cobalt. A long history of wars in neighboring countries such as Rwanda have contributed to instability in the region and, most recently, attempts at power grabs by armed rebels — at the end of January, the M23 group captured the eastern city of Goma and is pushing to move deeper into the country.
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“Civilians are frequently targeted in attacks in Eastern DRC,” the State Department wrote in an advisory put on Jan. 29. “Terrorists and other armed groups have attacked military and civilian targets and represent an ongoing threat to humanitarian aid workers and other NGO personnel operating in DRC.”
Travel insurance could be invalidated if you travel against advice
The equivalent government agency in the UK, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, issued a similar update advising all travel to DRC’s eastern and northern regions controlled by rebels and all but essential travel to the capital city of Kinshasa.
“Your travel insurance could be invalidated if you travel against advice from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office,” the updated advisory reads.
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“The U.S. government has extremely limited ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens outside of Kinshasa due to poor infrastructure and security conditions,” reads the equivalent advisory for U.S. citizens.
Other countries to currently have the State Department’s Level Four rating include Russia, Belarus and Ukraine after the former invaded the latter in 2022 as well as Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, North Korea and the Central African Republic among others.
While the history of violence has not made the DRC a popular travel destination, other countries on the continent have been seeing a boost in tourism numbers from both the U.S. and the UK — something to which airlines have also responded by updating their flight networks and launching new flights.
In the last year, Delta (DAL) , United Airlines (UAL) and British low-cost carrier EasyJet (EJTTF) have all opened up new routes to cities such as Cape Town, Lagos, Accra and, in the case of the latter, even the small island nation Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean.
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