JOHANNESBURG Conflict and escalating violence have uprooted a record 6.9 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly in the east of the country, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday.

Years of rebel conflict and recurrent natural disasters have helped fuel one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world.

Most of those forced to flee their homes live in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika, according to the data collected by the United Nations.

In North Kivu alone, up to one million people have been displaced due the ongoing conflict with a Tutsi-led rebel group M23, IOM said.

"For decades, the Congolese people have been living through a storm of crises. The most recent escalation of the conflict has uprooted more people in less time like rarely seen before," said Fabien Sambussy, IOM's head of mission in Congo.

IOM said since June it had built 3,347 emergency shelters and distributed 7,715 kits with non-food supplies but warned that operations remain underfunded.

(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)