The risk of epidemics is rising dangerously in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as more than 70 000 refugees fled to already-crowded camps over the weekend after renewed violence in the Ituri region, United Nations officials said.
UN agencies and non-governmental organisations have halted their operations in the troubled area, depriving more than 54 000 refugees at camps in Kafe, Tche and Gina of food and medical aid for a week.
This follows security concerns after militias killed nine UN peacekeepers on February 25 and a subsequent hard-hitting offensive by UN soldiers on March 1 in which more than 50 militiamen were killed.
”More than 10 people have died each day in the camps and around Kafe since the suspension of humanitarian aid in the region,” said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ituri (OCHA), shortly after the resumption of aid, although certain sectors remained too dangerous for aid operations.
On resuming some relief work on Friday, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF — Doctors Without Borders) said at least 25 people had died in refugee camps in the Ituri region over the past week.
Rapes, including gang rapes, were continuing on a large scale with ”30 to 40 women raped each week”, MSF said.
There had been at least six cases reported over the last few days at a camp in Tche.
”The camp is a real mess and still expanding as 200 to 300 new IDPs [internally displaced persons] have arrived,” said Patrick Barbier, head of the MSF mission in the Ituri district. ”There are many people suffering from diarrhea and the sanitation in the camp is deteriorating rapidly.”
At another camp in Kafe, MSF said severe diarrhea with dehydration was responsible for two or three deaths a day. The medical team is also setting up a nutrition centre to deal with malnutrition cases.
Prolonged inter-ethnic fighting in Ituri, a mineral-rich region in northeastern DRC, has claimed about 50 000 lives since 1999, with thousand others fleeing the violence. The most frequent fighting has been between the majority Lendu tribe and the minority Hema.
After the most recent clashes involving the UN peacekeeping forces and the Nationalist Integrationist Front (FNI), ethnic Lendu villagers in Loga accused UN soldiers of massacring civilians, including ten schoolchildren.
However the allegation was denied by General Patrick Cammaert, a Dutch UN commander heading operations in Ituri region, who said: ”We only engage people who have weapons and who are firing at us.”
MSF said the recent violence had left villagers in Loga ”traumatised” with many injured refusing to receive treatment.
The resumption of violence in the region also risks causing a future food shortage as the planting season for crops should now be starting, according to aid groups.
The German organisation Agro-action has recently begun distributing seeds to 40 000 families across the Ituri region.
The Congolese government recently announced it would launch an ”emergency plan” to end the ”endemic violence between the rival militias in Ituri”. – Sapa-AFP