And What, You Ask, Is Happening in Congo

Back on the blogging-train after yesterday's Eddie Izzard interlude - just in time for an update on everyone's favorite vacation spot.  Yes, eastern Congo, where you too can experience the joys of not-peace not-war.

For instance, earlier this year Congo and Rwanda launched a joint offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which operates out of eastern Congo.  Given that the FDLR was founded by former genocidaires from Rwanda, it's perhaps not surprising that the group retaliated by attacking Congolese civilians.  Once a war criminal, always a war criminal.

According to a recent report by UN OCHA, the attack on the FDLR and subsequent FDLR reprisal attacks have  forced as many as 800,000 people to flee their homes - 350,000 in North Kivu province, and 450,000 in South Kivu.

(On the other hand, the joint Congolese-Rwandan operation offers yet further proof that politics makes strange bedfellows.  So there's that.)

Yet this is just a drop in a very large, very depressing bucket.  According to UN OHCA, there are a total of 988,629 displaced persons in North Kivu province alone - these include a) people fleeing the FDLR, b) those displaced by heavy fighting last fall, when rebels under Laurent Nkunda almost captured the provincial capital of Goma, and c) other folks displaced during the past fifteen years of semi-near-continuous conflict.

The blog Stop the War in North Kivu puts these figures in perspective:

"Nine hundred eighty eight thousand six hundred and twenty nine men, women and children living in deplorable conditions. Most of them without access to humanitarian assistance of any kind: no food, no water and sanitation, no plastic sheetings. Nothing.

988,629. Higher than the population of Detroit.

988,629. Higher than the population of Marseille.

988,629. Almost equal to the population of Birmingham."

Stop the War in North Kivu also includes testimonies from IDPs, including this report by Silvie, a forty-five year old woman living in one of the camps:

“I came from Kiniangutu town, Masisi, in January 2008. We escaped me and my five children.

Life in the camps is very difficult. IDPs are neglected. When we were given the plastic sheeting we were told that they would change it every six months. It´s been two years with the same sheeting now. When it rains we get wet. The NFI [non-food items] they gave us are used and we sleep on the rocks.

The food we receive, 6 kg per person, is completely insufficient. In my town of origin this was the ration for one day.

War continues in my place of origin. The FDLR is there. People from Nyabiondo, as well as from Ufamandu, come and tell me how things are going over there.

My children here in the camp are 13, 11 and 8 years old. Two others are in a host family in Goma.

My husband died five years ago, in the war. We were in our field. The FDLR came and took him as prisoner. Since then, I have not seen him anymore. Although I have not seen his body, I think he is dead. When they take the people they ask them to carry things and later they kill them. I heard news that they had burned our house."

[Patients outside an MSF clinic in North Kivu - Photo from MSF / Vanessa Vick]