The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said in a report issued Tuesday that at least 3.3 million people had died since the war broke out in August 1998 and IRC's mortality study was completed in November last year.

"This is a humanitarian catastrophe of horrid and shocking proportions," IRC President George Rupp said, presenting the voluntary relief agency's report on the Internet.

"The worst mortality projections in the event of a lengthy war in Iraq, and the death toll from all the recent wars in the Balkans dont even come close.

"Yet, the crisis has received scant attention from international donors and the media," Rupp said.

Most of the victims died of disease or malnutrition, linked to displacement and the collapse of much of the countrys health system and economy.

"With poor or no access to basic health care, the smallest children have died at disproportionately high rates. In three of the ten health zones, IRC teams visited in the east, more than half the children were dead before the age of two," the report said.

The report was published the day after President Joseph Kabila took the oath of office as head of an interim government aimed at restoring peace in the vast central African country and taking it through to its first democratic elections in more than 40 years.

His swearing-in capped off 19 months of arduous peace talks between all parties to the DRC conflict, which resulted in a final accord being signed last week in South AFrica.

The IRC found that an estimated 30,000 deaths had occurred each month in excess of "what would normally be expected" without conflict.

In its latest mortality survey in DRC, conducted between September and November last year, the IRC wrote that "improved access and security in 2002 enabled the IRC to measure mortality among 9.3 million people in 10 districts in the war-decimated east, and 31.2 million in 10 western districts."

The increased security was in part due to the deployment of some 5,500 UN observers in DRC, and to the withdrawal of most foreign armies involved in the complex war, which Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and Chad had joined on Kinshasa's side, and Rwanda and Uganda on the side of rebel groups, the report said.

"While people continued to die at an extraordinary rate, death from violence in the east dropped by 90 percent compared to the previous three years of the war, and overall mortality also declined significantly."

But it warned that "the peace process is in danger", with renewed fighting in northeastern Ituri, where some 1,000 civilians were massacred in a single day last week, and urged regional security concerns be addressed urgently.

"Unless there is rapid and bold international investment in strengthening this peace process, all that has been gained in Congo could be lost," Rupp said.

"We hope the findings in this report compel the international community to take action."

The IRC made diplomatic and humanitarian recommendations, ranging from a halt to backing for militia groups to a major donor effort "to provide emergency assistance and reconstruction support at a level proportional to need".

"In addition, (illegal) exploitation of Congos natural resources by local and regional actors continues to fuel violence," the report noted, calling for further documentation of the violations and for punitive measures.

SPACE.WIRE