Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bunia (Agenzia Fides) - Repeated violence in east Congo is causing tens of thousands to abandon homes and fields. Warned that food supplies will soon run out the United Nations World Food Programme has launched an urgent call to international donors to give more funds assist these suffering people. The situation is most serious in Gety, in Ituri province, where 38,000 displaced persons are sheltering. On July 14 WFP took two week food rations from its stores at Bunia to distribute to 30,000 people in Gety, but now its supplies are almost finished and more funds are urgently needed.
"We are facing the consequences of the largest movement of people in the region in the last two years" said local WFP director Felix Bamezon. The humanitarian situation is dramatic, living conditions are desperate especially for children and next Sunday the people are called to take part in a general election. NGOs with feeding centres around Bunia say the number of malnourished children keeps on rising. In Gety alone over 200 cases of extreme malnutrition were registered. The situation of insecurity due to militia attacks affects also humanitarian activity blocking roads and limiting the movement and activity of humanitarian workers.
In the south east region of Katanga thousands of people have returned from Sampwe where they had taken refuge. Anxious to rebuild homes and lives, they will have to depend on supplies of food aid as well as seed and farm tools in the coming crucial months until the next harvest in February. This hardship and insecurity comes at a time when Congo faces the nation’s first ever free and democratic election. Every day in different parts of the country people are harassed in homes and fields by armed militia in search of food and money. The women are repeatedly the victims of rape. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 26/7/2006 - righe 29, parole 361).
