INSECURITY, POOR ROADS THWART HUMANITARIAN ACCESS AS CIVILIANS SUFFER SHORTAGES IN EASTERN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

INSECURITY, POOR ROADS THWART HUMANITARIAN ACCESS AS CIVILIANS

SUFFER SHORTAGES IN EASTERN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

NEW YORK, 24 November 2003 -- A recent humanitarian assessment mission to Walikale territory in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), some 100 kilometres from the border with Rwanda, found great humanitarian needs among the population there.  Though roughly 10,000 civilians had returned to their largely destroyed villages since fighting subsided in March, many still live in fear of numerous armed groups, who continue to pillage their crops.  Civilians also continue to suffer from shortages in health care and education, while thousands more remain cut off from aid due to the presence of armed groups, poor roads and the absence of an airstrip.

The mission was conducted while the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland,visited the area earlier this month.  The assessment team comprised five United Nations agencies –- the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) -- as well as two non-governmental organizations, the Associazione Volontari per il Servizio Internazionale (AVSI) and Caritas.  Its objective was to establish the general humanitarian situation following heavy fighting in March 2003, when forces of the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma, a former rebel group that is now party to the country’s transitional government) ended a six-month occupation of Walikale town by Mayi-Mayi militia forces.

Some 10,000 of Walikale town's estimated population of 15,000 have returned since March, after having sought refuge in the surrounding bush for several months.  As people continued to return, demands for food increased as the availability of food supplies decreased.  The mission found that people were reluctant to resume agricultural activity as armed groups helped themselves to food cultivated by others.  Mr. Egeland had raised this issue with transitional authorities during his mission, imploring them to end the practice.  The mission found that residents depended primarily on food items that were less likely to be pillaged, such as palm oil, rice and soybeans.  In the town of Mubi, food supplies were plentiful, but all the town's 20,000 residents had to rely on one unmonitored water spring.

The mission found that only one of the area’s 24 health centres was fully accessible.  The one non-governmental organization that is operational in the area, Médecins Sans Frontièrs, is working to rehabilitate the others.  The mission also found serious problems in obtaining medical supplies, given poor roads and insecurity; a very low level of vaccination coverage -- less than 21 per cent; and "very weak" epidemiological monitoring and reporting.  Anti-polio vaccinations had not taken place in the past two years, despite the fact that the region had experienced a major outbreak of polio as recently as 1998.

The territory's education system was devastated.  All schools had been seriously damaged, while many had been completely pillaged and destroyed during recent years of occupation, both by various armed groups, as well as by waves of internally displaced persons and refugees.  An estimated 40 per cent of school-age children did not attend school at all, with girls constituting a majority of absentees.  Of eight schools visited, none had a source of running water and only two were equipped with latrines, making the risk of disease "enormous", according to the mission.

For further information, please call: Stephanie Bunker, OCHA NY, tel.:  917 367 5126, mobile:  917 892 1679; Elisabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel.:  41 22 917 2653, mobile:  41(0) 79 472 4570.

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