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Source: Guardian

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93742

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93302

“There are 74 bodies in the morgue at Kisangani general hospital, of which 28 were brought in this (Saturday) morning,” the organisation’s Congolese secretary general Mario-Real Shutsha told AFP.

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“We are looking forward to the adoption of this law because we know it will change many things, especially with regard to our emancipation,” Jean Ganga, chairman of the Association for the Protection and Promotion of Indigenous Peoples.

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Three police officers have also been arrested and the president is determined to resolve the case, the interior minister said.

Floribert Chebeya, head of the group Voix des Sans Voix, was found dead in his car near Kinshasa on Wednesday.

He had reportedly been due to meet the police chief that evening.

Both the police and Voix des Sans Voix have said the meeting never took place.

‘Precaution’

The police chief, John Numbi, is seen as a close ally of President Joseph Kabila, the BBC’s Thomas Fessy reports from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.

Activists say Mr Chebeya had received regular threats over the last 20 years.

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Floribert Chebeya Bahizire was found dead early on Wednesday after being summoned by the police in Kinshasa on Tuesday. He was the executive director of one of Congo’s largest human rights organisations, Voix des Sans Voix (VSV) and of the national network of human rights groups.

“We are stunned and appalled by the suspicious death of such a prominent and respected human rights defender,” said Veronique Aubert, deputy director of Amnesty’s Africa Programme.

She declared: “Floribert has been arrested and harassed by the authorities in the past. It seems he may have paid the ultimate price for his valuable work.”

Mr Chebeya told Amnesty International on several occasions that he felt he had been followed and that he was under surveillance by the security services.

On the morning of 1 June, Mr Chebeya received a telephone call requesting his presence at the office of General John Numbi, the General Inspectorate of Police in Ligwala, Kinshasa. He left his offices at 5pm to go to the Inspectorate.

Mr Chebeya was in phone contact with his family until just after 9pm on Tuesday night. Just before 8pm he sent a text message to relatives saying he had not yet met with Numbi but was still waiting at the Inspectorate.

His last message said he was leaving the Inspectorate and stopping briefly at the University on the way home. Since then his phone has been unreachable.

His body was found by passers by early on Wednesday in a suburb close to his home.

“The government must urgently investigate this cold blooded murder and prosecute those responsible,” said Veronique Aubert. “Those who defend the rights of others must be allowed to continue their work free of harassment and persecution.”

Amnesty International says it has observed in the past year increased oppression of human rights defenders in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including by illegal arrest, prosecution, phone threats, repeated summoning to the offices of the intelligence services.

“Floribert’s death is a great loss for the human rights community,” said Veronique Aubert.

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“We asked if the schools could be reopened, but parents are reluctant as long as the militia are still at large,” said provincial education minister Richard Baengeto.

“Some parents and their children are still in the forest and refusing to go back to their villages, fearing for their safety,” Baengeto told IRIN.

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Photo: ReliefWeb

More than 70,000 people have been displaced by inter-communal clashes in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur province, according to the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

About half of the displaced have remained inside DRC, taking temporary shelter in locations such as Kungu, Bokonzi, Bomboma and Bonzene, according to the Belgian branch of MSF, which conducted an assessment mission to the province.

The team found “people who had walked for up to four days to save their lives. At the end of their journey, these people are destitute, they have nothing. They live in the open, or in makeshift shelters, or schools or churches, or with host families. The injured cannot get treatment because it’s too expensive and they fled with nothing,” MSF said in a statement.

The rest of the displaced crossed the Ubangi river into neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) where many are spread along the shore of the river and can only be reached by pirogue.

These refugees number more than 44,000 according to Samba Ndalla, the field coordinator of Médecins d’Afrique, an NGO that is working with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in ROC.

“This is the figure from Sunday [29 November]. But there is another wave of refugees who have arrived in Impfondo zone and have yet to be registered,” he said.

“The situation is catastrophic… most people only have shelters to protect themselves against the rain and sun,” said Ndalla.

“The needs are enormous. While we have not yet seen an epidemic as such, there has been an increase in cases of malaria, some cases of diarrhoea, respiratory infections and dermatitis among children,” he said.

Ndalla said the latest influx was the result of an attack on the DRC village of Buburu on Saturday night.