Aid workers to relocate Congo frontline refugees

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-14 11:06

Fear of Cholear Epidemic

Aid officials say the fighting has created a "catastrophic" security and humanitarian situation, and the risk of a repeat of the kind of human devastation caused by a 1998-2003 war that killed several million in the former Belgian colony.

The World Health Organisation said it was worried about a wider cholera epidemic developing in the Goma zone, where cases tripled between early October and early November, because of unsafe water, poor sanitation and weak health services.

Justin Kahama, 25, holds the stump of his leg, amputated after he was shot in his home during recent fighting in Rutshuru, 70kms (50 miles) north of Goma in eastern Congo, November 13, 2008. Tens of thousands of refugees at a frontline camp in eastern Congo will be urgently moved to prevent them being caught in crossfire between rebels and the army, aid officials said on Thursday. [Agencies]

"Such an increase of cases in a region that is already endemic for cholera is an early warning sign," Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General for WHO's Health Action in Crises cluster, said in a statement.

The aid worker who requested anonymity said there was a risk Nkunda's fighters may mingle with the refugees at Kibati.

"If clashes happen, displaced (people) will be moving from the camp to Goma. This might facilitate the infiltration of armed people among the displaced running towards Goma," the worker added.

Humanitarian agencies are clamouring for urgent U.N. troop reinforcements for eastern Congo. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to approve 3,000 more.

"The major preoccupation for us is security," Marjon Kamara, head of UNHCR's Africa department, told Reuters in Senegal.

But UN officials say even if approved, troops could take two months to deploy. Eastern and southern African states have offered peacekeepers, but only under a UN or regional mandate.

At Kiwanja, near Rutshuru, 70 km (40 miles) north of Goma in the rebel-held zone, human rights groups accuse Nkunda's rebels and a rival pro-government militia of killing dozens of civilians, mostly adults, in tit-for-tat reprisals last week.

They say these took place despite UN troops being nearby.

Commanders of the UN force in Congo, known as MONUC, say their force, despite its size, is not enough to cover a country the size of Europe with few roads, where marauding rebel and militia factions are preying on civilians on several fronts.

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