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Aid convoy heads into rebel region

Displaced people run from the Kibati displacement camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a battle broke out inside the camp between two groups of soldiers on Sunday after a soldier tried to rape a camp resident. PHOTO: EPA

A 12-vehicle UN convoy took desperately needed aid yesterday to a rebel-held town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as the government rejected the rebel leader’s demand for talks.

Laurent Nkunda, who has wrested control of several strategic towns, threatened in a meeting with reporters on Sunday to launch a campaign to overthrow the government if his offer was turned down.

The UN convoy of about a dozen vehicles left Goma, capital of Nord-Kivu province, for Rutshuru, about 75km to the north, escorted by around 50 UN peacekeepers.

Thousands of people lined the road from Goma to Rutshuru during the journey. It was the first humanitarian aid delivery behind rebel lines since fighting broke out in August.

Tens of thousands of people live in camps around Rutshuru and many fled into nearby villages and jungle after the new fighting between Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and government forces.

The aid convoy had a small amount of water and medical supplies, but UN officials were to size up the possibility of sending bigger convoys through rebel territory, UN humanitarian official Gloria Fernandez said.

She said medical supplies and tablets to purify water were the priority in this shipment. The priority is to take pressure of Rutshuru hospital, the only operating medical facility in a region of hundreds of thousands of people, she said.

She said clinics there have been “looted and completely destroyed.”

Another convoy today would be bringing food for some of the 250,000 refugees displaced by fighting, she said.

“At the moment, we are sending a team to see if it is possible to bring things to Rutshuru in the coming days,” said Theo Kapuku, national program officer for the UN World Food Programme.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, the UN Children’s Fund and the British medical aid charity Merlin also had representatives on the convoy.

Rebels were allowing farmers to reach Goma, the provincial capital, in trucks packed with cabbages, onions and spinach. The UN convoy also stopped to deliver a sack of potatoes to UN troops in Rugari.

The rebels declared a ceasefire last week after surrounding Goma where more than 1 million people have been displaced by fighting.

Nkunda threatened at a meeting with reporters at his stronghold of Kichangna to oust the government in Kinshasa unless it holds “direct” talks on his demands.

“We say we have to fight until we are going to get resolution of our problems through negotiations or if they ignore [that call], we are going to force them, to liberate Congo,” Nkunda said.

“For us, Congo is under occupation. An occupation of negative forces protected by our government. And our government has betrayed his people,” he said.

However, government spokesman Lambert Mende said that all “armed groups” in Nord-Kivu should be treated in the same way.

“The government sees no reason to discriminate against other groups of Congolese who have propositions to make” on the crisis in the country, he said.

Nkunda’s group was one of several in Nord-Kivu who signed a ceasefire in January and the government spokesman said any contacts had to be part of this process.

Meanwhile, Nkunda said his troops were at the gates of Goma and had infiltrated Goma airport. He said he had ordered his troops to halt their advance because he saw the suffering of people in Goma, and declared the ceasefire.

While Nkunda’s rebels have sought to reassure local people that they would be safe, Western governments have warned of a looming humanitarian disaster in the central African nation.

“More than 1.6 million internally displaced are trapped in the crisis” and cannot be easily reached, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Sunday in the Tanzanian city of Dar Es Salaam. “They are without food, water and other necessities.”

Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner met Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, chairman of the African Union, following talks with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan leader Paul Kagame.

Miliband and Kouchner were to present a joint report on the crisis at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Marseille yesterday.
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