Ipas’s Dr. Celestine Buyibuyi (above center) wants you to know what’s going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 

“People around the world need to know what’s happening,” she says. “Ever since I was born, the war has been here. We’ve never had peace, and women are the ones carrying the burden. Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war.” 

The DRC has suffered decades of armed conflict, and more than six million people are now displaced within the country. A surge in violence in the last two years has displaced even more people, and rampant sexual violence is driving many women and girls to seek abortion with unsafe methods. Access to reproductive health care—including abortion and contraception—is almost nonexistent in many camps for displaced people. But Ipas DRC is working to meet the overwhelming need. 

Dr. Buyibuyi, pictured above at work in a displacement camp, has helped Ipas DRC team up with local partners and government to establish mobile health clinics in camps—offering treatment for sexual violence, contraception and abortion. She’s also helped coordinate a youth-led network of community outreach volunteers, trained by Ipas, who educate people on how and where to access care. 

“The need for sexual and reproductive health services does not end, even during a crisis,” Dr. Buyibuyi says. Now she and the rest of the Ipas DRC team are hoping to expand these desperately needed services to more camps. 

You can help Ipas continue this vital work to bring abortion care to crisis settings like in the DRC. Please donate today, so that people living through a crisis can have control over their own reproductive health.