DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: More displaced people pour into camps to escape violence in Eastern Congo

Record ID: 346001

  • Title: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: More displaced people pour into camps to escape violence in Eastern Congo
  • Date: 4th October 2007
  • Summary: WOMAN RECEIVING MEDICINE FOR CHILD
  • Embargoed: 19th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Social Services / Welfare
  • Reuters ID: LVA975ECJ3L1YC2V8FN8Z2JOFS0A
  • Story Text: Civilians in Congo's conflict-torn North Kivu province are bearing the brunt of instability there as warring factions step up forced recruitment and a humanitarian crisis deepens.
    At a new camp recently constructed to house the refugees in Bulengo, United Nations High Commissioner Refugees (UNHCR) staff together with some of the refugees are destroying huts in a bid to organise the camp and create space for recent arrivals. The camp already has 12,000 refugees.
    "We are trying to give some land to each household. Each family is allowed to a 2.5 by 5 metre plot. It is not really enough but this is an emergency," said Fanu Frederic, who works with UNHCR.
    Jean-Paul Kakuti was attending his village school when he was kidnapped by fighters loyal to renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda, who are battling Democratic Republic of Congo's army in the lawless eastern province.
    "I am a schoolboy but I was abducted by the rebels of Laurent Nkunda. They took me to their camp, they beat me up on the back. It was painful. Then they told me that I had to join them and become a rebel. But one night, they went to fight and I took advantage of their absence and fled. This is how I ended up here," Kakuti said as he waited in a U.N. refugee agency tent in Bulengo, just west of the provincial capital, Goma.
    A tense stalemate reigns in North Kivu after an informal U.N.-brokered ceasefire helped end heavy fighting last month. Intermittent skirmishes continue between Nkunda's fighters, government forces, local militia, and Rwandan rebels.
    With no concrete efforts under way to negotiate a settlement to the current situation, North Kivu's civilian population is suffering an intensifying humanitarian crisis. More than 90,000 people were displaced by last month's fighting and there are worrying signs the situation could soon worsen.
    The Congolese army, considered by human rights groups as the country's worst human rights abuser, has poured thousands of extra troops into the province to battle Nkunda.
    Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission accuses Nkunda, local militia, and Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels of forcibly recruiting fighters, in some cases minors. The indications point towards preparations for the next round of fighting.
    Even before the latest round of fighting, more than 270,000 civilians had fled fighting in North Kivu since the beginning of the year. Few dare return home, causing camps to balloon and placing a strain on local communities that have welcomed them.
    Uncounted thousands more have been cut off from assistance, as transport routes have been transformed into front-lines.
    At the hospital in Masisi, one of the few operating in the area, a team from the Belgian chapter of MSF carries out an average of 1,000 consultations per week. The 73-bed facility currently houses 130 patients and medical supplies must be flown in by helicopter to avoid ambushes on the road from Goma.
    But most people who come here are more in need of food than medical attention.
    Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission has been pushing for negotiations to end the crisis and former colonial ruler Belgium is calling for the appointment of a special outside mediator for North Kivu.
    But it's not clear if or when these measures will take effect. In the meantime, innocent civilians have no where else to go except to camps and health centres like these in order to survive.
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