Tracking - More Clashes in Congo, Cholera Outbreak Feared
[Cholera outbreak in the camps around Goma - Footage from ITN News]
Fighting in eastern Congo has caused over 250,000 civilians to flee their homes since August, including 100,000 people in the last ten days.
In late October, rebel forces under Laurent Nkunda overran the Congolese Army and advanced to the edge of Goma, the largest city in North Kivu province, at which point Nkunda declared a ceasefire.
Aid workers are struggling to reach hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting.
Developments since Saturday:
- The UN reported fighting in three areas on Sunday - around Rutshuru and Kiwanja, north of Goma, and around Ngungu, west of Goma - as the rebels battled pro-Government militias.
There was fighting in Rutshuru and Kiwanja last week, but this is the first time there have been clashes in Ngungu. According to the BBC, this new front might represent an attempt by the rebels to encircle Goma.
- Some recent reports give a sense of how the Congolese Army is as much part of the problem as the solution. As Mike Pflanz reports from the frontlines near Kibati:
"[O]ne soldier on a motorbike fired shots into the air to warn journalists – including The Sunday Telegraph – away as they approached the new frontline. Others, clearly intoxicated, milled around carrying rocket propelled grenades.
Several other media and aid workers have been threatened by the soldiers, who now hold all of the village of Kibati, eight miles north of Goma after gunbattles with rebels on Friday.
Nizemunda Nyirandegeya, who was staying with friends in Kibati, said soldiers blasted open their front door with a volley of AK-47 shots late on Friday, bursting in to steal four mobile phones, several kilos of aid food and a small amount of cash. They have also been accused of raping women."
"At the front line near Kibati, soldiers milled around Sunday, collecting pay, smoking marijuana and looking unconcerned about the rebels, who were gathering less than a kilometer (half a mile) away. Intermittent gunshots crackled from the direction of government positions."
- Aid agencies continued to struggle over the weekend to reach those most in need. Access is particularly difficult in the north, around Rutshuru and Kiwanja - as Reuters reports: "aid workers are unable to reach camps where thousands of people had been sheltering before the latest fighting."
For more information on the humanitarian situation, see below:
A spokesman for World Vision elaborated: "We had a lot of work going on in Rutshuru and some points in between, but that's been suspended. We would like to see the corridor opened all the way to Rutshuru, but we don't think it's going to happen."
According to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF): "There are many displaced people in the zone who live under very bad sanitary conditions. All the risk factors are there for an explosion of a major epidemic."
The situation might be even worse behind rebel lines, in areas cut off from humanitarian assistance.
[For a wrenching BBC photo essay about the situation in the displaced person camps around Goma, see here.]
There was at least one positive development over the weekend, when the British airlifted 29 tonnes of relief supplies into Goma. The supplies include one million water purification tablets and plastic tarpaulin sheets for shelter. As one UNICEF spokesman explained, "These supplies will help contain the spread of cholera and diarrhoea".
- In a sign that the conflict might yet spark a wider war, the South African Development Community (SADC) announced that it would send military advisors to assist the Congolese Army, and would also be willing to send a larger peacekeeping force.
There are reports that Angolan soldiers are already on the ground, supporting the Congolese Army, despite denials by the UN and the Congolese Government. Nkunda, for his part, announced that he is "ready to fight them" if they attack his forces.
That said, don't expect much peacekeeping assistance from Europe. As UN Dispatch reports, the EU has announced that it will not send troops anytime soon. Oxfam immediately issued a strong statement decrying the lack of European support:
“We hear excuse after excuse from European countries about why they can’t help and they pass the buck to another country, another continent. Their inaction has very human consequences, as the thousands that fled Kibati and Kanyabayonga could tell them. 5.4 million people have died over the last 10 years. How many more must suffer before Europe will take effective action? The international community is failing in its Responsibility to Protect civilians in eastern Congo."
- Finally, for information on how Congo's mineral wealth is fueling the conflict, see here.
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