Nearly 100,000 people massed in a rebel-held town in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) yesterday to receive the largest distribution of aid since fighting intensified in the region last month.
The UN Children’s Fund was handing out soap, blankets and water containers, supplies that can help combat diseases such as cholera, spokesman Jaya Murthy said.
Cholera has spread across the east of the country since fighting intensified and forced more than 250,000 people to flee their homes for crowded, chaotic and unsanitary refugee camps.
Murthy said hundreds of cholera cases have been reported in the past three weeks in Rutshuru, the de facto capital of rebel-held territory where people gathered to receive aid about 70km north of the regional capital of Goma.
“This intervention is particularly critical,” Murthy said. “With the frequent movements of people, that’s how cholera spreads.”
Meanwhile, UN special envoy Olusegun Obasanjo will embark on a second peace mission to DR Congo this weekend, the UN said on Tuesday, amid reports of a dispute with Kinshasa over Indian peacekeeping troops.
Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president who undertook a first trip as UN envoy to the DR Congo two weeks ago, will arrive in Kinshasa on Saturday and hold meetings with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, the UN said.
Obasanjo will then travel on Sunday to Goma, the frontline of the conflict between Laurent Nkunda’s rebels, the Congolese army and an assortment of militias.
The government has reportedly sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asking him not to send any more Indian troops to reinforce its peacekeeping mission.
India is not mentioned by name, but diplomatic sources said there was no doubt the letter was referring to the large Indian contingent of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission.
“In view of the numerous abuses of power carried out by certain troops within MONUC, the [Congolese] people would not understand if soldiers from the same country would be used to boost numbers within MONUC,” the letter says.
Indian peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse and MONUC admitted in August that some Indian troops could have been involved.
The letter could prove a major diplomatic embarrassment to the UN. Some 90 percent of the peacekeepers patrolling the troubled Nord-Kivu region are from India and New Delhi is also providing assault helicopters for the mission.
The UN Security Council voted last Thursday to send 3,000 reinforcements to the country. Which countries will supply the extra troops and when is still to be undecided.
The UN has been criticized for failing to protect the estimated 250,000 displaced people by both the rebels and government forces.
Also on Tuesday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it would start to transfer 30,000 vulnerable people from camps for safety reasons.
“Tens of thousands of displaced Congolese civilians in the Kibati camps are in a dangerous situation as the warring parties remain in close proximity,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler said.
The UNHCR had already warned of the plight of 67,000 people in the Kibati camps last week after a 20-year old woman was killed by a stray bullet during what residents described as a foiled attempt by soldiers to kidnap a girl.
“Soldiers also looted several huts and working premises of several NGOs [non-governmental organizations] working in the camp,” Spindler said.
He said that the first transfers will see vulnerable, young, sick and elderly people moved by truck or on foot to existing camps on the western outskirts of Goma, with UN peacekeepers providing security.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS