DR Congo refugees suffer in a ‘hell of the forgotten,’ Vatican newspaper emphasizes

January 16, 2026

In the most prominent front-page article in its January 15 edition, L’Osservatore Romano reported on the dire situation of Congolese refugees who have fled the brutal advance of the rebel March 23 Movement.

Now in refugee camps in neighboring Burundi, the refugees are “dying of hunger, cold and hardship,” Federico Piana reported in “Nell’inferno dei dimenticati“ [The hell of the forgotten].

Piana interviewed Father Mario Pulcini, a Xaverian missionary in Burundi since 1978; the priest spoke of the efforts of the Church in Burundi to assist the refugees in camps where “everything is lacking: water, food, clothing. And diseases are rampant.”

 

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Further information:

• Nell’inferno dei dimenticati (L'Osservatore Romano, 1/15/26)