Internally Displaced People march towards a town as nightfall approaches.
(Photo: © Richard Pituwa/IRIN)
Congolese civilians are in extremis while internal and external factions fight for power in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tens of thousands of Congolese are suffering deprivation, hunger, thirst and disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
A force of Congolese rebels, led by General Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi, advanced on Goma with the stated aim of “liberating” the entire country. The few roads in the area were said to be clogged with more than 45,000 refugees.
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DR Congo Country Focus
More background to fighting
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, declared, “We’re talking tens of thousands of people who fled towards north Kivu’s main town of Goma and thousands more who are fleeing north to a town called Kane Byunga.”
The latest bout of fighting, it added, had resulted in a ‘very bad’ humanitarian situation.
Two of the biggest problems cited earlier this month in Ngungu, 100 kilometres north west of Goma, were inadequate water supply and lack of basic hygiene, leading to an outbreak of acute water diarrhoea, which killed 37 and infected more than 300 others.
Map showing the affected areas of DRC
(c) CMS
Local NGOs, international NGOs and UN agencies are struggling to meet immediate needs.
Congolese Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) remain in desperate want of all kinds of assistance and support.
Bukavu Diocese and its bishop, the Rt Rev Bahati Bali-Busani, have appealed to CMS for prayer, advocacy and humanitarian help.
A church leader in Goma wrote to CMS Regional Manager Stephen Burgess: “Our appeal would be, first, for prayer but also for advocacy and, if possible, to find ways of getting assistance for our families and elders living in camps and thus meet the basic needs required for their survival.”
Stephen says, “Ever since I started this job in 2005 I’ve been very concerned about the conflict in eastern Congo and what a mission society such as CMS can do to facilitate peace there.
“My concern is for ordinary people who are suffering while there’s no peace. They have no security; they have to flee their homes, they can’t grow crops – they suffer physically, mentally and socially – while some of the region’s powers are acting out a war in someone else’s country.
“Part of CMS’s response can be to keep people informed of the situation in eastern Congo. Such information can also be used for advocacy. In the short term, CMS can mobilise prayer and, in the longer term, humanitarian help for our Congolese brothers and sisters, made in the image of God like us.”
Check out the Bishop of Winchester's questions and comments about the DRC in the House of Lords, as reported by
Hansard
(31.10.2008).
How did events reach such a stage?
On 28 August this year, fighting flared up between Laurent Nkunda’s Congres National pour la Defense du Peuple (CNDP) rebels and the Congolese army.
That has resulted consequently in scores of civilians being injured and killed, looting and rapes, and at least 100,000 people being displaced in the Provinces of North and South Kivu, according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The ongoing fighting has inhibited and even, at times, curtailed humanitarian aid to such IDPs. Most international NGOs have currently left Goma.
Nkunda maintains that he is only protecting the Tutsi community from attacks by Rwandan Hutu rebels, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). FDLR combatants have certainly attacked Congolese civilians.
To complicate matters further, Nkunda accuses the government of supporting Hutu rebel groups.
The Congolese Ambassador to the UN has described Nkunda as “some kind of proxy for Rwanda”, which, in turn, he described as one of “the spoilers in the region”. Rwanda is accused of having expansionist ambitions for eastern Congo.
Rwanda argues that Hutu FDLR fighters – who are accused of taking part in the Rwandan genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994 – will use the DRC to destabilise Rwanda again.
The tribal hatreds, greed for Congo's mineral wealth and lust for power – exhibited by all sides to the conflicts – have exacerbated an already inflammatory situation.
Their reluctance to keep to the Peace Agreement doesn’t help either.
The waters are continually muddied by the claims and counterclaims that the various parties to the conflict make about each other.
MONUC, the UN peacekeeping force, is there to provide a buffer between the FDLR and Nkunda’s group.
MONUC is not immune to such allegations. It’s argued that the Congolese Army nearly succeeded several times in displacing Nkunda’s forces from eastern Congo but for MONUC’s untimely intervention. “A more impartial” peacekeeping mission has been called for.
Some locals have attributed MONUC’s reluctance to get rid of Nkunda and his men to its alleged complicity with the CNDP, its supplying of arms, involvement in the illegal mineral trade and a desire to maintain a lucrative posting.
Whatever the truth of such claims and justifications, innocent civilians are enduring a living hell in eastern Congo.
Please pray for the victims of this conflict and for the DRC and Rwanda as the tensions in the former mount. Please also prayerfully consider what else you can do to help those in need.
You can read more historical background on the conflict in the DRC.
CMS has received a request from the Diocese of Bukavu for humanitarian assistance. Many people are in the church compounds in Goma and Rutchuru. We are able to send funds to Bukavu Diocese.