DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Humanitarian aid distributed among civilians fleeing conflict in eastern Congo

Record ID: 788834

  • Title: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Humanitarian aid distributed among civilians fleeing conflict in eastern Congo
  • Date: 6th November 2008
  • Summary: (BN10) KANYARUVHINYA, DR CONGO (NOVEMBER 5, 2008) (REUTERS) RED CROSS TRUCKS COMING IN FROM GOMA, SEVERAL INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE (IDP) WITH THUMBS UP TRUCKS DRIVING INTO RED CROSS CAMP (SOUNDBITE) (French) RED CROSS FOOD DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR PATRICK GUEISSAZ SAYING: "Today we organised an emergency food distribution. It is rations for ten days. Most of the displaced people don't have access to basic food needs for the recent period. It's the first distribution they've received. It's flour, soya bean oil and salt. It will allow the IDPs to have an improved situation for at least ten to fifteen days."
  • Embargoed: 21st November 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAAW1AUXGZCNUVO28IULXZASWML
  • Story Text: A Red Cross aid convoy heads into a rebel-held zone of east Congo to reach tens of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting.
    Foreign aid groups on Wednesday (November 5) scrambled to address a humanitarian emergency in North Kivu described as "catastrophic" by relief workers in a country where more than 5 million people have died in a decade from conflict, hunger and disease.
    The U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, at 17,000-strong the largest of its kind in the world, has strengthened its positions but says it is thinly stretched across a nation the size of Europe, where several armed groups still operate and where Congolese Tutsi rebels fought a pro-government militia for a second day on Wednesday.
    The fighting threatened a fragile ceasefire and forced some aid agencies to suspend work in the combat zone.
    Aid workers from the Red Cross on Wednesday moved a large consignment of food aid to some of the tens of thousands of displaced civilians spread around the town on Goma.
    The relief effort provided rations expected to last more than a week to some 4,500 families or around 25,000 people in one area outside Goma. There are an estimated 65,000 in need of aid, in that area alone.

    "Today we organised an emergency food distribution. It is rations for ten days. Most of the displaced people don't have access to basic food needs for the recent period. It's the first distribution they've received.
    It's flour, soya bean oil and salt. It will allow the IDPs to have an improved situation for at least ten to fifteen days," said Red Cross coordinator Patrick Gueissaz.
    An offensive last week by rebel General Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi fighters in the area sent civilians in Goma as well as thousands in camps for internally displaced people (IDP) fleeing for their lives.
    Aid workers seeking to locate and help thousands of displaced civilians in the nearby area of Rutshuru said they had been forced to suspend operations there because of the hostilities.
    The enduring conflict in eastern Congo, which persists years after the end of a wider 1998-2003 war, has triggered international efforts to secure a lasting peace on the country's Great Lakes border with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
    Kenya announced on Wednesday that a summit of Great Lakes region heads of state, which would bring together the Congolese and Rwandan presidents, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, would be held in Nairobi on Friday (November 7).
    Rebel chief Nkunda, who belongs to and defends Congo's Tutsi minority but also demands a better government for the whole country, threatened on Tuesday to take his guerrilla war to the capital Kinshasa unless the government agreed to talks with him.
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