Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment the Mass Atrocity Prevention Hub has made of the potential risk of atrocities occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo against (a) ethnic and (b) linguistic communities in the next three months; and if he will provide a list of the armed groups that have been identified as posing a significant risk.

The protection of civilians in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is of the utmost importance to the UK. Regular local conflict analyses are conducted in DRC which identify localised drivers and triggers of conflict. These are an essential foundation for all programmatic response to conflict in DRC. In 2022, a Jo Cox Memorial Grant was used to fund research into current atrocity prevention efforts in DRC. This showed how identity-based violence and mass atrocities might be better integrated into local early warning and early response mechanisms. The Office for Conflict, Stabilisation and Mediation (OCSM) is trialling an atrocity risk assessment process, which has flagged DRC as having a high risk of mass atrocities.