Humanitarian crisis now unfolding
October 20, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
 Photo: ReliefWeb  |
| Map of Angola |
(IRIN) – A burgeoning humanitarian crisis among the tens of thousands of people expelled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to neighbouring Angola is beginning to unfold.
“The fears of a humanitarian emergency and the needs of the people have been confirmed,” said the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) representative, Bohdan Nahajlo, after an assessment visit to the affected region in northern Angola.
The most urgent needs of the expelled are shelter, food, medicine and sanitation facilities.
Tit-for-tat expulsions since August 2009 by the governments of Angola and DRC have led to more than 32,000 Angolans being repatriated to Angola, and about 18,800 Congolese nationals being deported from Angola. Following talks on 13 October in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, both countries agreed to “immediately stop the expulsions of citizens of their respective states”.
Nahajlo told IRIN that providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced was becoming a race against time, as the rainy season was closing in and would make the roads from the Angolan capital, Luanda, impassable, and the M’banza Congo airport in Angola’s northern province of Zaire was not an option because it was closed for renovation.
“Sanitation [in the reception centres] is very bad,” he said. Around 17,500 expelled Angolans were in the Mama Rosa settlement in the border-crossing town of Luvo.
Three settlements close to the town of Cuimba, near the DRC border in Zaire, were also hosting displaced people: there were about 5,000 in Lendi, about 2,500 in Casileha, and around 2,600 in Buela.
In Lendi more than 5,000 refugees had hastily erected very basic shelters. “Water is being given directly to the population in buckets – there are reports of people ill with diarrhoea and vomiting,” Nahajlo said.
However, the exact number of people displaced to Angola is unclear, as people may have fled to Cabinda, the oil-rich Angolan province surrounded by DRC, or other areas bordering DRC, he told IRIN.
A recent UNHCR assessment of Angolan refugees in the DRC found that about 43,000 were willing to be repatriated voluntarily, but “in this atmosphere people will be encouraged to return,” and the refugee agency was expecting a second wave of about 50,000 people, Nahajlo said.
“Besides addressing the immediate humanitarian and protection needs, we should also prepare for a continuous flow of Angolans into the country,” who were crossing the border out of fear, and the hope of being reunited with their families in Angola, he warned.
The speed of the expulsions meant that some people had been driven from their places of work without being able to inform their families, people in mixed nationality marriages had been forbidden to accompany their spouses to Angola, and families had been split, with children divided among their parents.
“I met a man who told me he was given 24 hours to leave, but he could not reach his wife, who had travelled to another town to visit her sick mother. He ended up leaving the family behind,” Yolanda Ditewig, a UNHCR Protection Officer who was part of the assessment team, told IRIN.
The Angolan government has estimated that about 10,000 tents, of which UNHCR is expected to provide about half, would be required to provide shelter for the expelled Angolans.
During Angola’s almost three decades of civil war, which ended in 2002, the DRC hosted more than 100,000 Angolan refugees; since then, thousands of undocumented Congolese migrants – mostly thought to be illegal diamond diggers – have been working in Angola.
The ebb and flow of people expelled from both sides of the border has become a common spat between the neighbours. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) there have been six major waves of expulsions since 2003, in which a total of 140,000 Congolese were deported from Angola.
Back in the DRC
“There are no sites to host the expelled people [from Angola],” said Willy Iloma, who chairs a human rights organisation and coordinates NGOs in Muanda territory on the Angolan border, in the extreme west of the DRC’s Bas-Congo Province. “They are now scattered in churches and among host families; some have gone to Kinshasa [capital of DRC] and other towns.”According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are two groups in Muanda and Tshela territories: “forced voluntary expulsees who left following threats, and those who were physically deported to the border. Most of them are small-businesspeople, as well as women and children. Although these expulsees have humanitarian needs, the situation is now under control and aid is not currently required [in DRC].”
Congo troops ‘massacred refugees’
October 16, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Army troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo shot and beat to death about 50 Rwandans in April and burnt their refugee camp, a UN investigator says.
Philip Alston said about 40 women were also abducted and it prompted a revenge massacre by Rwandan Hutu militia.
His report said military operations this year carried out by the army supported by UN peacekeepers in the east had produced catastrophic results.
They have been pursuing Hutu rebels who have been based in DR Congo for years.
The BBC’s Thomas Fessy in the capital, Kinshasa, says Mr Alston gave horrifying details of his investigation.
He said the attack on the makeshift refugee camp of Shalio in North Kivu happened on 27 April.
“Some 40 women were abducted from the camp. A small group of 10 who escaped described being gang-raped, and had severe injuries – some had chunks of their breasts hacked off,” AFP news agency quotes him as saying.
Repercussion fears
The government troops involved were the newly integrated rebels from the Tutsi-led movement which threatened to take over the provincial capital Goma a year ago.
At least 96 civilians were massacred in a neighbouring village by Rwandan-Hutu militia in revenge for the Shalio killings.
DR Congo’s Information Minister Lambert Mende said the authorities were aware of the massacre.
But he said they feared repercussions if they arrested former Tutsi rebel commander – Colonel Zimulinda – who Mr Alston alleges orchestrated the Shalio massacre.
“Zimulinda’s arrest would have had worse consequences than the crimes of which he is accused,” Mr Mende said, according to the Reuters news agency.
In his report, the UN expert said the UN Security Council had transformed the peacekeeping force into a party to the conflict.
Earlier this week a joint report by several international aid agencies said the offensive against the Hutu FDLR rebels in the east had had “disastrous” humanitarian consequences.
Instability has been rife in eastern DR Congo since ethnic Hutus accused of taking part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide fled to the area.
Their presence inflamed ethnic tensions with the local Tutsi community, with rival militias battling one another.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Hoping to halt reciprocal repatriation
October 15, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
The number of Angolan refugees deported from neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC] has now topped 28,000, raising fears that a newly announced agreement between the two governments might not necessarily bring a halt to expulsions.
Both countries agreed to “immediately stop the expulsions of citizens of their respective states”, and said they regretted the “recent migratory incidents” in a joint communiqué issued after talks on 13 October in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.
“We hope that this time the agreement will be implemented; this time there was a more high-level delegation,” said Francesca Fontanini, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the DRC, noting that previous talks had failed.
Thousands fled Angola’s long civil war by crossing the border into DRC, and over 111,000 Angolans were still living in the DRC before the repatriations began in August 2009. “The majority of these people were refugees,” Fontanini told IRIN.
On the other hand, Angola has for years deported thousands of undocumented Congolese migrants – mostly thought to be illegal diamond diggers – working in Angola. In the latest surge, some 18,800 DRC nationals have been expelled from Angola since August 2009.
The move by DRC is seen as a retaliatory response. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) there have been six major waves of expulsions since 2003, in which a total of 140,000 Congolese were deported from Angola.
Katharina Schnöring, the Chief of Mission of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Angola, said the Angolan government had set up a reception camp near the border post of Luvo/Lufu, in the northern province of Zaire, where most of the expelled Angolans had gathered.
“They have started registering people, distributing food, tents and NFIs [non-food items],” she told IRIN. The Angolan government estimated it had enough stock to last 30 days, and a joint government/UN assessment team was underway to appraise the situation, she said.
“The government wants to transport people home, but this is not always possible: some people had lived in the DRC for 40 or even 60 years,” Schnöring said.
The 1960s saw the rise of various independence groups and guerrilla warfare in Angola. In 1974, tired of the war, Portugal agreed to hand over power to a coalition of the three major Angolan nationalist organisations, but civil war broke out almost immediately after independence in 1975 and lasted for the next 27 years.
The civil war ended in 2002, but the impact on the country has been immense: an estimated 1.5 million people lost their lives, hundreds of thousands were displaced, infrastructure was destroyed, more than half a million faced starvation when peace returned, and about eight million landmines littered the country.
Reintegrating the growing number of Angolans gathered at the border post into their original communities as soon as possible, rather than setting up camps, is seen as the best solution, but organizing transport would be a race against time: “The rainy season is approaching and the roads are not that good in Angola,” Schnöring commented.
Even if the agreement was upheld on a diplomatic level, there were fears that the latest round of deportations might have fanned lingering animosity between Angolans and Congolese living in each other’s countries. “There are fears of xenophobia – that’s the real danger now. We are worried this [situation] might explode,” Schnöring warned.
A recent assessment by UNHCR among the Angolan refugee population in DRC indicated that some 43,000 were willing to be repatriated voluntarily. “They had expressed a desire to go home,” Fontanini said.
“We were planning to start that process before the end of the year – we would have sat down with both governments to discuss how this could best be done.”
Civilians Under Attack in Northern Congo
October 14, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Ugandan-led rebels are expanding their territory in northern Congo, an international aid group said Wednesday, committing child abductions, rapes, and — in one instance, forcing a man to club his own brother to death.
Medecins Sans Frontieres said the violence by members of a shadowy Ugandan rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army started in a remote region of northern Congo last year and has recently spread to nearby areas. Few other humanitarian agencies are working in the area, which has few roads.
The aid group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, presented a video of victims’ testimony at a news conference in South Africa. One man said he had been abducted with his brother, who tried to escape. He was forced to recapture his brother and club him to death.
“If I hadn’t done it, they would’ve have killed me too,” he said.
His name and the names of others who appeared in the video were withheld by MSF to protect them from possible reprisals for speaking out. In the video, a 15-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman described being captured and raped.
“They told me they were going to make me someone’s wife, but I refused, and they hit me with a knife,” the woman said. “I was wounded in the leg. So I had to accept.”
Meinie Nicolai, MSF’s operational director, said in South Africa Wednesday her group could not address the political question of how to stop the violence. But she said: “There needs to be respect for the civilian population.”
She said the work was dangerous.
“The security situation for humanitarian workers is not easy,” she said. But “we’re not saying it’s impossible. And the needs in the area are increasing.”
The mysterious LRA is notorious for mutilating victims and abducting children — forcing the boys to fight and the girls to become rebels’ concubines. It has been waging an insurgency in northern Uganda for more than 20 years, and the conflict spilled over into Congo about five years ago.
Congo, which is the size of Western Europe but has poor infrastructure and little government oversight, is fraught with violent groups.
Earlier this week, humanitarian groups said that fighters in eastern Congo have killed more than 1,000 civilians and displaced some 900,000 since January. The report released by a coalition of 84 organizations said that many of the killings were carried out by Rwandan Hutu militiamen. Congolese government soldiers also have targeted civilians, the report said. – Fox News/Associated Press
Clowns bring smiles and inspiration to displaced people in eastern Congo
October 8, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
In camps in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where more than half the 1 million internally displaced people (IDP) are children, a team of clowns from Europe has been treating the suffering and trauma with laughter.
“Children who live in areas of crisis, such as conflict or post-conflcit zones, rarely get to laugh,” Asuka Imai, a field officer at UNHCR Goma, said of the recent visit by the Spanish branch of the aid organization, Clowns without Borders. It was their second visit this year.
“These children had never seen this kind of show, which in the end is very constructive and not just a performance. This is an innovative idea to use laughter to heal trauma and distress for children.”
The tour started in Kibati IDP camp, 15 kilometres from the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma, which hosts 3,000 displaced. With music blasting, the clowns emerged from a tent to enchanted children who had assembled hours before the performance. The youngest of those sitting on the ground in a circle looked about five-years-old.
“It was overwhelming to see the energy and hear the music of these wonderful people . . . the day seemed magical,” said one of the teenagers interacting with the clowns during the performance.
For a few hours, the children forget their experiences of fleeing homes and witnessing violence, said the president of Kibati camp. The clowns also went beyond IDP camps near Goma to reach isolated camps in Kitchanga and Masisi, performing in front of a total of 48,000 people.
Clowns Without Borders was created in 1993 because of the suffering, especially for children, caused by the war in the former Yugoslavia. They are professional clowns or circus artists who volunteer their time and talent.
“We play with them as a team, we support each other,” said Gili, a 14-year-old girl who appreciated that the clowns invited them to join in. “When the children are launched in the air there is always someone ready to catch them so they do not fall.”
In fact, the need for unity, support and reaching a common objective is the main message spread by the clowns as they bring communities together so they can celebrate and forget, briefly, the tensions in their lives.
“I will be leaving the camp soon since peace has generally come back to my village,” said Pascal, a 42-year-old from the Masisi region. But he hoped Clowns without Borders could return to perform for those who will bear the mental scars even after going home.
“Even there, children need this kind of entertainment to overcome the suffering and the difficulties, to continue with their life,” he said. “Bringing a smile to a misfortunate kid, or even any normal kid, is a wonderful gift to give.”
By Francesca Fontanini in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Police stop DRC refugees from trekking home
October 6, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
 Photo: Judith Basutama/IRIN |
| The refugees had refused to be relocated to another camp |
Police in Burundi have forcibly prevented a group of refugees from leaving a camp because they intended to trek home to Democratic Republic of Congo, according to residents.
“The police fired and we all ran away. Two have been injured; three others lost consciousness because of fear. They have been taken to Kibumbu hospital for care,” one refugee told IRIN on 6 October.
A leader of the refugees, Freddy Gakunzi, said police had sealed off the camp early in the morning to prevent about 2,000 refugees in the camp in Gihinga, who have refused to be relocated to another camp in Burundi, from making good their pledge to return to eastern DRC, despite major military operations there.
The camp was officially closed on 30 September.
In the morning, the Mwaro local administration ordered people to dismantle the camp, removing plastic shelters. Some refugees were still there with their mattresses, kitchen utensils, bags and jerry cans and other belongings.
Felix Shikiro said he would stay with friends locally while waiting for a promised lift back to DRC.
Some refugees say they were beaten and brutalized. Some women bore the marks of beatings on their hands. One woman with a child on her back was seen handcuffed and forced to board a police van.
The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has advised against a return to DRC at this stage.
“The conditions which forced the refugees into exile in June 2004 … still essentially prevail,” UNHCR said in a statement on 5 October.
“It would be irresponsible to allow refugees to expose themselves to almost certain risk through the decision to return,” said Clementine Nkweta-Salami, UNHCR representative to Burundi, in the statement.
Speaking on local radio, Burundi first deputy president, Yves Sahinguvu, said: “No one can prevent a refugee from repatriating but they should make sure they are briefed on the situation prevailing in their country of origin so they do not take risks.”
DRC: Cholera kills at least 100 in east
September 28, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
 Photo: microbiologybytes |
| The cholera causing germ, Vibrio cholerae |
At least 100 people have died of cholera in parts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since January, say medical sources.
South Kivu Province is the worst affected, with at least 75 people dead and 6,392 infected, said Eugene Kabambi, who is in charge of communications at the UN World Health Organization (WHO) in DRC.
The South Kivu governor, Louis Leonce Muderwa, said the 10 worst-affected health zones in the province included Fizi in the region of Baraka, Nundu, Uvira, Kadutu, Ibanda, Bunyakiri, Katana, Minova, Nyantende and Kabare zones. Two deaths have been reported in Kadutu and one each in Ibanda and Katana.
Muderwa declared a cholera epidemic there on 14 September.
In neighbouring North Kivu Province, 48 deaths had been recorded and 4,609 people infected by 13 September, according to a WHO report.
Five health zones have recorded cases, including the main town of Goma, Karisimbi, Masisi, Mutwanga and Rutshuru areas. Other eastern regions have also recorded cases, with Katanga listing 199 new cases and two deaths.
The North Kivu provincial medical inspector, Dominique Bahago, blamed the cholera outbreaks on poor hygiene. “The majority of the population’s supply of cooking and drinking water is from Lake Kivu where all kinds of waste is dumped; cholera is endemic in that zone,” said Bahago.
Cramped living conditions in displaced persons camps, as well as the inconsistent use of latrines, had exacerbated contamination, he said.
An estimated two million people are displaced in eastern DRC, some of them repeatedly since the start of conflict there in 1996.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and partners are helping to distribute water to affected locations in North Kivu, chlorinating water, disinfecting premises and conducting hygiene awareness, among other activities, according to a 25 September press release. The cholera treatment centre in Virunga was also reopened on 14 September to deal with the outbreak.
“As the rainy season [arrives] in this cholera endemic zone, it is very important to take measures that will allow for the spread of this epidemic to be contained,” said Catherine Savoy, ICRC health coordinator.
More than 10,000 cases have been recorded in the Kivus since the beginning of the year, according to Kabambi of WHO.
DRC cracks down on migrants
September 26, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
Kinshasa – Democratic Republic of Congo has been expelling illegal immigrants from neighbouring Angola and is targeting those from the Congo Republic, government spokesman Lambert Mende said on Saturday.
The expulsions match similar moves by authorities in Luanda and Brazzaville, and a senior official implied they were in retaliation.
Mende said the crackdown launched two weeks ago was in line with the law against illegal immigration, but the nationals of the states to the south and west had been singled out because they were the most numerous.
He said for the moment only Angolans were being expelled as the Congolese were benefiting from a three-month moratorium signed by Kinshasa and Brazzaville.
State media in Luanda said on Thursday that Angola had thrown out nearly 2 500 illegal immigrants over three days and detained 800 more in its oil-rich Cabinda enclave wedged between the two Congos.
The majority of the migrants expelled in “Operation Cleanup” were from the DR Congo with 357 coming from the Republic of Congo, the reports said.
Early this month Brazzaville authorities shipped more than 600 DR Congo citizens back across the Congo river in what they said was a “sterilisation” operation before the mayor agreed the moratorium with his Kinshasa counterpart.
According to Kinshasa’s Directorate of Migrations Angola expelled more than 800 000 Congolese from the DRC in 2008, while humanitarian sources told AFP more than 9 000 had been thrown out between May and mid-July this year.
“Faced with the extent of the sufferings of our compatriots living in Angola and Congo, the government has instructed us to expel all Angolans and Congolese here illegally,” a directorate official said.
“We are taking them to the border in groups of 30 to 35.” – Sapa-AFP
Insecurity continues to bedevil aid work in northeast
September 17, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
 Photo: Tiggy Ridley/IRIN |
| Young militia fighters stand guard outside their leader’s hut close to Bunia (file photo) |
Militia attacks in parts of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in the past few months are worsening the humanitarian situation there and preventing access to affected populations, says a UN official.
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the zones under militia attack in Irumu Territory, south of Ituri District, has risen from 30,000 to 105,000 in a year, said Jean-Charles Dupin, a senior humanitarian affairs officer with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bunia, Ituri’s capital.
“Zones south of Aveba [town], Boga, Bukiringi, Kamachi and Zunguluka remain difficult to access due to insecurity. Any humanitarian interventions there would endanger beneficiaries who are attacked after aid distributions,” said Dupin.
“NGOs have been forced to evacuate four times in the locality of Gety [south of Bunia] in the last two months… During the day, the displaced population returns to their fields to look for food. In the evening, they return to their places of displacement.”
A 16 September OCHA update said close to 200 families had fled the locality of Mandibe, 9km south of Irumu, after a militia attack and were seeking refuge in Komanda, 75km south of Bunia.
The Congolese army has added to the displacement, according to humanitarian sources.
 Photo: Les Neuhaus/IRIN  |
| A MONUC contingent is in the south of Ituri to repel and neutralize militias (file photo) |
Between a rock and a hard place
Recently, army soldiers dislodged residents from localities neighbouring Gety in retaliation for the killing of a soldier during an FRPI/FPJC (Front de resistance patriotique en Ituri/Front populaire pour la Justice au Congo) raid in the Munobi area.
The soldiers, who blamed the death on the villagers, also arrested three village leaders, according to local authorities.
Affected populations are in a difficult situation, said local reporter Annuarite Unyuti: They are afraid of militia reprisal attacks and of the army, which accuses them of collaborating with the militias.
Local traders are opting to defend themselves, said Zebedée Zigiabo, a local nurse.
According to a resident of Lengabo, 7km south of Bunia, it has also become very difficult to distinguish between the militia and army soldiers.
Many people are without protection, said the coordinator of the Ituri parliamentary security initiative, Jean Baptiste Detchuvi. An initiative of 32 local parliamentarians is seeking to improve security in Ituri.
According to Detchuvi, there are still a lot of weapons in illegal circulation despite the demobilization of ex-combatants. An estimated 2,000 FRPI/FPJC militia members have not been demobilized, according to the national demobilization programme.
A contingent of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) is south of Ituri to repel and neutralize FRJC/FRPI militia. For the moment though, its operations, which include logistical support to the army, have stopped, after local politicians decided to pursue a political solution to the conflict, said Lt-Col Jean Paul Dietrich, MONUC’s military spokesperson.
The army staff major in Ituri, Eugene Walungu, said: “We have not recorded militia attacks recently [but] raids to steal and loot from the population. I take them [the raids] to be [the actions of] armed robbers.”
Child soldiers
According to a report by the international NGO Save the Children, there are still many children serving as soldiers. Between September 2008 and August [2009], at least 117 child soldiers were rescued from different militia groups in Irumu. Most of those rescued in the last month were from the FPJC.
The children claimed that more child soldiers wanted to leave the militias but were afraid of reprisals or army attacks when trying to leave militia ranks, said Dupin.
DR Congo: Protect Civilians & End Military Operations
September 15, 2009 by Webmaster · Leave a Comment
THE IMPACT OF MILITARY OPERATIONS
While the military operations, known as “Kimia II,” carried out by the Congolese army (FARDC) against the FDLR continue in parts of North Kivu, some of the most intense recent fighting has been in South Kivu, where the operations were officially launched in July 2009. At the same time, improved security in parts of North Kivu is leading some people to return home. However, the ongoing operations are still preventing most people from returning.
New Displacements in South Kivu
In Luberizi and Sange towns in Uvira territory, Refugees International (RI) met with newly displaced people who fled their homes at night after hearing shots fired between the FARDC and the FDLR. Families were scattered in the chaos of the crossfire, most forced to leave with no belongings, seeking shelter in the forest until they could reach friends or family in other villages. Those with nobody to turn to took refuge in churches or schools. Those too old or infirm to walk to safety stayed in the forest.
Before the operations, a number of FDLR combatants in South Kivu had managed to integrate into Congolese society, marrying Congolese women and having families, although their exploitative and abusive relationship with the local population largely continued. However, in the context of the operations, people told RI that the FDLR had become much more aggressive, turning on those who had made an effort to tolerate their presence.
In the last few months, the FDLR has increasingly attacked the local population in order to punish communities or to send a wider message that the rebel group will not easily be defeated. If reprisal attacks by the FDLR in North Kivu are to be any guide, in South Kivu, where the FDLR are even more integrated into the local population, the Kimia II operation has the potential to create widespread human rights abuses and displacements.
A woman displaced from Ziralo groupement in Kalehe territory told RI that she fled after her husband and two young grandchildren were killed by the FDLR in July and all the houses in her village were burned down. Other people displaced from Ziralo said women were raped by the FDLR as they fled their homes. As a local official in Uvira territory said, “It’s ironic that the army has come to chase the FDLR, and it’s the population who flees.”
In Mwenga, a number of people told RI that they were able to escape in advance of the operations after hearing government warnings over the radio. Many were forced by the FDLR to pay a “tax” to get out, but others who did not leave quickly enough are now being prevented by the FDLR from fleeing altogether. Among those who were able to flee with their personal items, many ended up having them stolen along the road by armed men as they attempted to make their way to safer areas. Many displaced people also heard that their houses had been completely looted or destroyed after they fled.
The FDLR is not the only armed group targeting civilians and causing displacement. RI heard reports of people in Mwenga and Sange being harassed or arrested by the Congolese government for alleged association with the FDLR. The presence of the Tutsi-dominated former rebel group, the CNDP, once an enemy of Kinshasa and now integrated into the ranks of the FARDC to help carry out the Kimia II operations, is also playing a destabilizing role, given the history of ethnic tensions in the region. As a member of civil society in Bukavu said, “We don’t understand why the problems of North Kivu have been extended south. Are the aggressors now here to guard the peace?”
The majority of people who have fled their homes in South Kivu are staying with host families, who themselves are struggling with crowded conditions and a lack of basic necessities. While additional funding has been allocated to respond to the growing crisis in South Kivu, humanitarian agencies are not able to reach all those in need, including host communities, because of poor roads and ongoing insecurity related to the military operations. This means that displaced people along main axes such as the Ruzizi plain will quickly receive assistance, while those who have been forced to flee in other areas like Shabunda remain under-served.
Cautious Returns in North Kivu
The Kimia II operations continue to cause new displacements in parts of North Kivu, including isolated and inaccessible areas such as western Masisi and Walikale territories. Meanwhile, a lull in the fighting in areas such as Rutshuru territory has also led to an increase in the number of people returning home, as they can access their lands for farming. However, not all return areas are fully secure and many return communities include newly displaced people, the majority of whom live with host families.
While people are slowly returning to certain areas, this can not be taken as an indication of lasting peace in the region, particularly given the fact that many people have been displaced at least two or three times previously. The cycles of violence in eastern Congo have continued relentlessly for more than a decade, and the Kimia II operations are still creating insecurity in North Kivu. For many displaced people, the armed group that forced them to flee in the first place has been replaced by another armed group which is causing new displacements and preventing returns.
In some cases, former perpetrators of abuses have simply changed uniform. The rapid integration of the CNDP rebel group into the FARDC did not change the composition of the troops. While ex-CNDP soldiers may now be wearing the uniform of the FARDC, they maintained their command structures. As a result, some people who fled because of the CNDP last year are still wary of going home.
Some returns have been encouraged for political reasons, in order to send a message that the operations are succeeding. In Rutshuru territory, displaced people at the spontaneous site next to the MONUC base in Kiwanja told RI that earlier in the year the local CNDP controlled administration attempted to get the local population to help destroy the site, saying there was peace and people should return. While MONUC and humanitarian agencies eventually stopped the destruction of the site, it is clear that the returns process risks being manipulated. Representatives of the Congolese Government’s Amani Program in Goma reportedly also encouraged returns in February 2009, telling displaced people that the war was over.
Insecurity still remains a major obstacle to returns in North Kivu. Assistance has decreased in most spontaneous sites in 2009, but despite the lack of services many displaced people are too scared to return home.
IMPROVING PROTECTION STRATEGIES: HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE AND SECURITY
Need for a Flexible Humanitarian Response
While the emergency response was already underway in North Kivu, where the operations against the FDLR were first launched, the response in South Kivu was just scaling up at the time of RI’s visit. Despite needs being identified at the beginning of the year through contingency planning, it took several months for funding to be received. And as the Kimia II operations move south, many of the greatest areas of need originally identified in South Kivu have shifted, highlighting the necessity of quick, flexible funding to address the constantly changing situation.
Responding to the needs of communities that include displaced people, host families, and returnees will continue to pose a challenge. As a result, donors and humanitarian agencies need to move beyond assisting particular categories of people, such as “displaced” or “returnee”, and look to assisting people based on their vulnerabilities.
In North Kivu, UNICEF is developing vulnerability criteria that will allow its Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) to provide assistance to those with the most needs in a community, whether they are displaced or living with a host family. As the RRM has been a key element of the emergency response in South Kivu, donors should support expanding this approach of targeting the most vulnerable.
At the same time, the RRM is not intended to be the first responder in all crises. As the Kimia II operations continue to cause displacements in South Kivu, there will be a need for increased leadership and coordination throughout the cluster system. Rather than relying too frequently on the RRM, cluster leads should push agencies and partners to respond when they have the adequate capacity to do so.
As returns increase in parts of North Kivu, some donors are shifting their support away from displaced people towards returnees. However, there are still vulnerable people who remain in the camps, spontaneous sites, and with host families. The situation in North Kivu remains far from a durable peace and donors will need to stay engaged and flexible in order to respond to new displacements that are likely to happen as the operations continue. Moving beyond allocating assistance to particular categories of people can go a long way in helping humanitarian organizations adapt to the changing needs.
Rigid categorization of assistance in terms of “emergency” versus “development” further limits the overall humanitarian response. In the case of eastern Congo where infrastructure is extremely degraded, focusing greater attention on projects like road-building can have important immediate impacts in terms of improving security and humanitarian access. It can also set the stage for longer-term stability by opening up access to markets and increasing the freedom of movement for local people.
Finally, the proliferation of actors continues to make coordination of the humanitarian response more difficult, particularly in North Kivu. The current implementation of the UN’s Comprehensive Strategy on Combating Sexual Violence in the DRC, intended to create a framework for existing activities of agencies responding to gender-based violence (GBV), exemplifies the need for greater coordination.
GBV is a serious concern for millions of women and children in the DRC, and with the Kimia II operations, the number of cases of violence against women has greatly increased. GBV also remains a prominent issue in the media, particularly with the recent visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Goma. Because of the high profile nature of the work, donors and organizations may be tempted to “go it alone” rather than conform to the UN GBV strategy. However, without a coordinated response and clear accountability to ensure that the strategy is implemented, GBV interventions risk being ad hoc and having less impact than the overall investment.
Enhance MONUC’s Protection Role
The mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUC, to provide logistical support to the FARDC has resulted in vocal criticism from the humanitarian community in the context of the Kimia II operations. MONUC’s involvement has visibly damaged relations between the mission and humanitarian actors and has weakened collaboration towards the shared goal of protecting the Congolese people. Facing heavy criticism, MONUC has taken a number of steps to improve its ability to protect civilians which should be supported.
MONUC has recently established mobile operating bases in Hombo-North, Otobora and Ntoto in North Kivu and continues to coordinate with the humanitarian community through the “protection matrices,” which identify priority locations for MONUC’s protection activities.
MONUC’s Joint Protection Teams (JPTs), led by the mission’s civilian sections, continue to gather valuable information about the security and political situation in North and South Kivu and develop recommendations to improve MONUC’s protection capability. While the JPTs are making positive strides in improving MONUC’s capacity to respond to protection concerns, the teams are still under-resourced in logistics and staff. With insufficient resources, the ability of the JPTs to be preventive as opposed to reactive is reduced. Civilian staff should be urgently redeployed to the east to reinforce the JPTs, particularly as MONUC draws down its functions in the western provinces in accordance with Security Council resolution 1856.
At the request of humanitarian organizations, MONUC’s Civil Affairs Section no longer co-leads the Protection Cluster with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). UNHCR now leads the cluster in partnership with an NGO co-facilitator. The result has been a reduction in the effectiveness and accountability of the cluster, as NGOs struggle to find funding to cover co-facilitation tasks and MONUC, one of the key protection actors in the Congo, no longer has a formal leadership role.
The humanitarian agencies that lead and participate in the Protection Cluster have also failed to capitalize on the JPTs as a valuable information resource, despite the fact that they often go where humanitarian organizations do not have access. As cluster lead, UNHCR should ensure that the JPTs are given the opportunity to share relevant information within the framework of the Protection Cluster, and that the information gathered by the JPTs is distributed systematically throughout the wider humanitarian community. Although MONUC and humanitarian actors have different mandates and activities with respect to civilian protection, their work should be seen as mutually reinforcing. Their collaboration is critical.
SUPPORT ALTERNATIVES TO A MILITARY SOLUTION
While civilian protection strategies must be made as effective as possible, they will ultimately not solve the core problems that create such high vulnerability for the people of the eastern Congo. Kimia II has received significant international support, but the enormous cost to the civilian population cannot be justified, especially as there is little likelihood of success. A sustainable solution to the violence and presence of armed groups in eastern Congo is needed.
MONUC reported in August that the FDLR had been dislodged from 70% of their strongholds in both Kivus. However, in parts of South Kivu like Mwenga, where the FARDC do not have the capacity to hold all of the areas they have captured, the FDLR are reportedly retaking some of their old positions and attacking the local population as a result.
A number of non-military options have been pursued in the past to deal with the FDLR, particularly through MONUC’s disarmament, demobilization, repatriation, reintegration and resettlement (DDRRR) program. These programs, however, have often suffered from a lack of political and institutional support.
A different kind of pressure is needed on the FDLR, beyond a short-term military strategy. This alternative pressure should focus on revitalized support to DDRRR through better staffing and logistics as well as more direct targeting of senior FDLR leaders both in Congo and abroad, with a view to cutting off their funding sources, dismantling the leadership, and arresting and building criminal cases against them.
The U.S. must also use its influence in the region to put equal pressure on both the Congolese and Rwandan governments to address the underlying causes of the conflict and find peaceful solutions to their shared problems, including the uncontrolled exploitation of mineral resources and unresolved land issues.
Dealing with the FDLR will not solve all of the problems in the DRC, however, and donors will need to remain engaged for the foreseeable future in assisting vulnerable populations that are still in need of basic services. As more displaced people return home, more funding must also go to support early recovery activities in communities so that a path can eventually be paved to sustainable peace in the region.
Camilla Olson and Jennifer Smith assessed the humanitarian situation for internally displaced people in the DR Congo in July and August.
