The European Union announced Wednesday an aid package worth almost 70 million euros ($77 million) for the Great Lakes region of Africa which has been plagued by conflict and natural disasters.

"The humanitarian situation in the Great Lakes region is desperate -– and is expected to deteriorate further in 2024 as the conflict intensifies and the root causes of violence persist," Janez Lenarcic, EU commissioner for crisis management, said in a statement.

The statement said 63.75 million euros ($70 million) of the package was allocated to humanitarian projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) including 4.75 million euros ($5.2 million) for disaster risk reduction.