About 2.8 million people have been forced from their homes since March 2022 in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, the three conflict-plagued provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Monday.

The central African country now has 6.3 million internally displaced people, the highest number in any African country, the OCHA said in a press release.

Gender-based violence is rampant with more than 31,000 cases registered in the first three months of 2023 alone, the UN body said, warning that the real number is likely much higher as sexual violence often goes unreported, with grave violations against children on the rise.

UN humanitarian agencies in the DRC and their international non-governmental organization (NGO) partners are urged to deploy additional capacity and put in more resources to increase the scale of humanitarian assistance in the region in support of the efforts of the DRC government and working closely with local partners and organizations.

Despite the scale of the needs, funding for humanitarian response remains low, the OCHA said, noting that aid agencies require 2.25 billion U.S. dollars to help 10 million people this year.

As of June 19, the humanitarian response plan is only 28 percent funded, it said.

"We call on donors to further support, although humanitarian assistance is not a long-term solution," said UN humanitarian coordinator in the DRC Bruno Lemarquis. "Alongside humanitarian assistance, we also need much more efforts and investment in early recovery and emergency development programs to assist communities get back on their feet. But first and foremost, we need the violence to stop."

Hunger and malnutrition in the east are growing due to a lethal mix of violence, natural disasters, widespread poverty and lack of basic services. In Ituri, food production has dropped 25 percent over the last year alone. Outbreaks of Ebola, measles, cholera and other diseases have also contributed to the region's humanitarian crisis.