More than 35,000 flee homes over renewed fighting in DR Congo
July 26th, 2009
Villagers who have formed a local self-defence force in Bangadi in northeastern Congo. More people have been displaced in renewed clashes as government moves to disarm militia. Photo/FILE
KINSHASA, Saturday
Renewed fighting in the eastern province of South Kivu of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has forced more than 35,000 civilians to flee their homes in the past two weeks, the United Nations refugee agency said yesterday.
The latest population movement brings the total number of civilians to have been displaced in South Kivu since January as a result of clashes between government forces and Rwandan rebels, and reprisal attacks on civilians, to about 536,000 people, said the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
“We are gravely concerned that the renewed fighting in South Kivu will have a negative impact on UNHCR-organised voluntary repatriation of Congolese refugees from neighbouring Tanzania, the majority of whom are from the province,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva.
Initial UNHCR estimates show that at least 35,000 people have been displaced in the Ruzizi River plain, where the DRC borders Rwanda and Burundi.
These people reportedly fled after the government launched a fresh military campaign on July 12 in the Uvira area of South Kivu. The campaign is aimed at the disarmament of the so-called Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and their local militia allies.
The total number of people displaced by violence and fighting in the eastern DRC is now over 1.8 million, UNHCR said.
Following the crisis, the Zambian Ministry of Home Affairs in conjunction with the DR Congo government and UNHCR have embarked on a registration exercise of all Congolese refugees residing outside refugee camps and settlements in the country’s Northern and Luapula provinces, local newspaper The Post of Zambia reported yesterday.
According to the report, the information was from a public notice at different public places in Mpulungu in Northern province signed by Zambian Home affairs Permanent Secretary Ndiyoi Mutiti.
Mutiti stated that the purpose of the registration exercise was to collect and verify information about the refugees and their family members, in order to provide them legal documentation and ensure that they were known to the two governments and the UNHCR.
Meanwhile, prison in eastern Congo’s town of Goma is the worst in Africa, with 850 prisoners crammed into a jail built for 150 making conditions “inhumane”, a top UN human rights official said.
Dmitry Titov, the UN assistant-secretary general for rule of law, said the humanitarian situation in Congo’s east was “dire” but he said UN peacekeepers were right to back the army in operations to stop the carnage despite intense criticism.
Congo’s government, backed by the UN’s largest peacekeeping force, is still struggling to stabilise swathes of its east, three years after the international community helped organise elections meant to offer the nation a new start.
“I’ve travelled in many parts of Africa in post-conflict situations, but the prison in Goma is the most terrible I’ve ever seen,” Titov told reporters in Kinshasa late yesterday after visiting three of Congo’s eastern provinces.
Titov acknowledged efforts by some donors to improve conditions, which he described as “inhumane”, but he called on Congo’s government to match them with their own efforts.
Over 650 of the prisoners were being held but had not yet faced any charges, he said.
The ongoing operations that Congo’s army and the UN are carrying out against rebels in the east have drawn particular criticism as they have displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and are being led by some alleged rights abusers.
Disarming militia
“The situation is dire. We do admit criticism,” Titov said, adding that disarming militia was the only way to improve security and ease the plight of the civilians.
“What we are trying to do is to stop the carnage and to bring the perpetrators to justice on both sides ... It is vital that the chain of command to the very top support the extension of justice, including in the most notorious cases,” he added.
Kabila has vowed a zero tolerance policy against abuse by his soldiers, which analysts say commit as many, if not more, abuses than the rebels they are fighting against.
But Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel who joined the army under a peace deal, continues to help lead the UN-backed operations despite a warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes.
source.nation.ke