ZAIRE/ ITALY: REFUGEES IN EASTERN ZAIRE ARE DYING BECAUSE THEY ARE CUT OFF FROM FOOD, WATER AND SANITATION

Record ID: 275059

  • Title: ZAIRE/ ITALY: REFUGEES IN EASTERN ZAIRE ARE DYING BECAUSE THEY ARE CUT OFF FROM FOOD, WATER AND SANITATION
  • Date: 8th November 1996
  • Summary: GOMA, ZAIRE/ ROME, ITALY (NOVEMBER 8, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) GOMA, ZAIRE 1. LV/SV REFUGEES SURROUNDING UNITED NATIONS (U.N.) WAREHOUSE/ MEN WITH STICKS BEATING REFUGEES AWAY FROM WAREHOUSE (4 SHOTS) 0.31 2. SV MAN WITH GUN THREATENING REFUGEES 0.38 3. SV SCUFFLES IN CROWD OF REFUGEES 0.46 4. SV REFUGEES SAY
  • Embargoed: 23rd November 1996 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GOMA, ZAIRE/ ROME, ITALY
  • City:
  • Country: EUROPE AFRICA Zaire Democratic Republic of Congo Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVA8M98HM55DI6Y61YVK83WI4BHR
  • Story Text: INTRO: The United Nations Food Agency has warned that more than 80,000 children under the age of three could die in the next three weeks if aid routes are not opened in eastern Zaire.

    In Goma, Zairean Tutsi rebels fired into the air and beat back more than 1,000 hungry people fighting for the last food supplies from a U.N. warehouse.

    Two people collapsed outside the gate of the warehouse on Friday (November 8) as the mob tried to break into the United Nations (U.N.) building when trucks loaded with the last food drove out to two hospitals in the city.

    "I have had nothing to eat today and nothing but water yesterday," said 60-year-old Fessu Mahakenya, his hands shaking.

    "We've got nothing to eat and no money. Even if we had money we would have nothing to buy with it," said Richard Imukunze.

    People on all sides begged from each other and rushed to steal what little food was distributed to other people before trucks removed the last food from the U.N. refugee agency warehouse.

    On the edge of the crowd a one-legged man hopped around on crutches trying to swap a broken surveying instrument for food.

    The Head of the World Food Programme (WFP), the U.N.'s Food Agency, on Friday warned that more than 80,000 infants could die in eastern Zaire in the next three weeks unless humanitarian aid corridors are opened to starving refugees.

    Catherine Bertini, executive director of the WFP, said people were already starting to die. She said there was an "absolute, immediate need for humanitarian corridors to be opened and for us to be able to move food through." Bertini said military intervention was one solution but the local governments could not agree on this because thepolitical agreements were not yet in place.

    Rwanda has said it is opposed to French participation in a U.N.

    humanitarian force to open aid corridors for over a million Rwandan and Burundian refugees trapped in fighting in eastern Zaire.

    Bertini spoke as aid workers in Goma, Zaire, said war was affecting an increasingly wide area, with more people fleeing and ever greater numbers going hungry.


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