FIVE British members of parliament were on Sunday on a humanitarian fact-finding mission in the rebel held town of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). A delegation spokesman said the team had to explore “the humanitarian situation in DRC,” especially in the east, which is controlled by the Rwandan-backed Congalese Rally for Democracy (RCD) rebels. Led by Labour Party MP Oonah King, the delegation has already met rebel officials and visited the Masisi region, just north of Goma. UN peacekeepers are deployed in Goma as part of a revived ceasefire accord in the DRC, where rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda launched an insurgency in August 1998. The rebellion, which has split the country in two, has left some 2,5-million people dead mostly through disease and malnutrition, and inflamed ethnic tensions in central Africa. – AFP
Sunday August 5, 2001