Humanitarian Response in Congo Under Strain
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ActionAid is preparing to ramp up its support to scores of people in the Congo fleeing ongoing violence. The number of displaced people continues to soar with 60,000 arriving at one camp alone last week. The influx has places a heavy burden on humanitarian aid, ActionAid International warns. At the Kibati camp in eastern Congo, tens of thousands fleeing the fighting arrived with just the clothes on their backs and are desperately in need of help.
“We are extremely worried that we may soon have to deal with the larger crises of diseases and epidemic break-outs as people are sleeping in the open in the pounding rains,” said ActionAid’s Director in Congo Alpha Sanko. “The lucky ones are finding somewhere to sleep in schools and churches in Goma town, but many others are not so lucky.”
Outside the camps, many people are sleeping in the open without protection from heavy rains.
“It is bad enough not to have food, but its worse when the nights arrive and you don’t have anywhere to sleep,” one woman in the Kibati camp told ActionAid. “We lie on these rocks, get rained on and sit in the sun to dry during the day.”
Anna Rebecca receiving a 25kg bag of beans from ActionAid at the Catholic Church in Goma town, DRC, November 11th 2008
Copyright © Martin Adhola/ActionAid
ActionAid is helping 50,000 people in the area with food supplies – beans, maize flour, salt and cooking oil as well as with emergency relief items such as soap, mattresses, blankets, plastic sheeting, water containers, mosquito nets and cooking utensils. In the coming days, however, ActionAid staff will increase the quantity of supplies to ensure additional people in camps have access to these items.
Violence erupted in the country several weeks ago and Rwanda has been accused of backing renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who is fighting the Congolese army.
ActionAid is particularly worried about the safety of women and children both inside and outside the relief camps.
“We know women are the first target of both soldiers and civilians when law and order breaks down and many remain silent for fear of reprisals or discrimination,” said Audry Shematsi, ActionAid’s women’s rights coordinator in Goma.
ActionAid is supporting women’s groups in Goma and providing counselling for women and children.
Last week, delegates from women’s groups in Goma visited Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, to present the Rwandan government with letters pleading for peace.
“We are concentrating our relief operation in Goma town as well as camps outside Goma,” said Sanko. “At the same time we are carrying out needs assessments in the region -- a task made particularly difficult by the constant movement of people.”
ActionAid is an international anti-poverty agency working in over 50 countries taking sides with poor people to end poverty and injustice together.
