(Bloomberg) -- A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo as fighting rages across the country’s mineral-rich eastern provinces, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country told the Security Council. 

Nearly a quarter of Congo’s 100 million people are facing food insecurity and the number of displaced people has increased more than 800,000 in the past three months to 7.1 million people, Bintou Keita told the council on Wednesday. The figures are “unparalleled” in Congo’s long history of conflict, she said.

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Humanitarian agencies are facing a massive shortfall of funds, particularly around the trading hub of Goma, along Congo’s border with Rwanda, where more than 630,000 people have fled an offensive by the M23 rebel group to 104 makeshift camps, she said. The region is home to vast reserves of tin ore, gold and tantalum, a mineral used in mobile phones.

M23 now occupies all former positions held by a force from the East African Community that withdrew at the end of last year, Keita said. Congo accuses Rwanda of backing the rebels, who say they’re protecting the Congolese Tutsi and other Kinyarwanda-speaking communities. Rwanda denies the assertion.

Land occupied by M23 has reached “unprecedented levels,” and rumors that the group is expanding to South Kivu province has contributed to instability there, Keita said. UN peacekeepers are currently withdrawing from the province as part of a controversial plan to hand over security to Congolese and regional forces. 

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Two-thousand troops have already deployed to North Kivu from the Southern African Development Community since December, Keita said.

Eastern Congo is home to more than 100 armed groups fighting over land, resources and ethnic and political representation. 

Security is also deteriorating in the gold-rich Ituri province because of a widening inter-ethnic conflict and attacks by the Islamist Allied Democratic Forces rebel group, who’ve killed at least 200 people since the beginning of the year, Keita said. 

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