UN agencies have of a ”humanitarian catastrophe” for thousands of people displaced by fighting and beyond the reach of aid workers in the Congo’s Pool region south and west of Brazzaville.
”We fear a humanitarian catastrophe in the Pool, where thousands of civilians who have fled the clashes have no assistance,” UN World Food Programme representative Sory Ouane told a press conference.
Troops of President Sassou Nguesso’s government have since March 29 been in the Pool region hunting renegade militia forces known as Ninjas, who have refused to fall in line with a disarmament programme.
UN officials said Friday while they have the resources to get to people in need and provide assistance in Pool, much of which is densely forested, but the army is preventing them from doing so.
”We’re calling on all parties to the conflict to grant us access to civilians so that we can assess their needs and help them,” Ouane said.
Fighting has been reported from areas in the west of the Pool region, where Ninjas led by Pastor Frederik Bitsangou, alias Ntumi, have grouped around the towns of Kindamba, Vindza, Kimba and Mayama.
More than 40 000 people have fled their homes to go deeper into Pool or for Brazzaville and neighbouring districts such as Bouenza and the Plateaux, according to the UN agencies’ coordinator here, William Paton.
”We’re fearful of a human tragedy because civilians displaced deep into the Pool region have lacked food and medicine for almost two months,” Paton said.
”In Kindamba, about 5 000 trapped displaced people are not eating. Their situation is steadily worsening.”
UN relief teams tried to reach Kindamba on April 17 and May 11 but were forced to turn back both times for security reasons. On May 8 and 9, UN agencies sent an aid mission to Kinkala, the main town in the region, which has been spared the fighting.
”We responded favourably when the government in April launched an appeal for displaced people in the Pool region. We have the logistical, material and human resources,” Paton said.
”But military authorities are asking us not to go into the conflict zones on security grounds.”
The WFP has 3 000 tons of food stocked in Brazzaville and at Nkayi in the south and the distant Atlantic port and oil terminal city of Pointe-Noire, Ouane said.
A new cargo of 2 000 tons is expected to arrive in the next few days. Lamine Cisse Sarr, representative of the UN World Health Organisation, said emergency medical kits for 30 000 people were also available.
”We want the parties to the conflict to go into negotiations about giving us humanitarian corridors,” Paton said.
”We want to avoid the errors of the civil war in 1998-1999, when we weren’t allowed to go out to civilians until eight or nine months after the fighting began.
”During that time, thousands of people were killed by hunger and disease.” Under a peace pact signed late in 1999 after a decade of successive conflicts, most of the militia forces that served as private armies for different political forces laid down their arms.
Ntumi, however, has failed to do so, rejecting terms for reintegration into society or incorporation into the armed forces of the economically battered nation. – Sapa-AFP