"The humanitarian situation in the eastern sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo is critical". This was the declaration released to MISNA by Comboni Missionary Father Gianbattista Antonini, secretary of the 'Congo Forum' (Advisory bureau of the missionary institutes in ex-Zaire). Father Antonini stated that the risk of an unprecedented massacre is extremely elevated due to the uninterrupted fighting in the tormented African country. "The population is at the end of its resources and the war has practically paralysed every necessary emergency assistance service. A situation which paradoxically comes when international aid lacks". The Kivu region is reigned by total chaos and insecurity. While provisioning difficulties increase in the north-eastern areas along the border with Central Africa and Sudan and in the capital, Kinshasa, where the prices have shot sky-high. "The missionaries - Father Antonini continued - are at the service of the poor and in their name invoke major attention from the international community. Congo is one of the world's most tormented 'Kosovo's'. Father Antonini concluded reminding of the total absence of humanitarian agencies in the vast territories of East Congo. "The only witnesses of the sufferance of ex-Zaire's millions of men and women are the missionaries, who stood by them aware of the consequences of a war that since the 2nd of August 1998, brought nothing but hunger, misery, desperation and death".