http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbFri, 12 Mar 2010 12:53:59 GMTNAIROBI Friday, March 12, 2010 (IRIN) - Government troops - the FARDC - in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are to blame for much of the epidemic of sexual violence in the east of the country, according to US and UN reports detailing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by various groups there.NAIROBI Friday, March 12, 2010 (IRIN) - Government troops - the FARDC - in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are to blame for much of the epidemic of sexual violence in the east of the country, according to US and UN reports detailing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by various groups there.

FARDC is trying to rout the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from the Kivu region and Oriental province in eastern Congo, but operations have been criticized for their impact on civilians.

“Armed groups such as the LRA and FDLR commit atrocities that amount to grave breaches of international humanitarian law and, in some instances, may also constitute crimes against humanity,” according to the UN experts.

“In North Kivu, an assistance provider for victims of sexual violence recorded 3,106 cases between January and July 2009; half of these cases were perpetrated by FARDC members,” a group of seven UN experts said in their second report on the situation in DRC, submitted to the Security Council on 8 March.

Many of the FARDC troops used to be members of rebel groups who joined the army as part of peace initiatives.

In 2009, groups still under arms “continued to commit numerous, serious abuses - some of which may have constituted war crimes - including unlawful killings, disappearances, and torture”, according to the US government’s annual global human rights report, released on 11 March.

The UN experts added arbitrary arrest, forced labour and extortion to this litany of abuses.

In Dungu territory of Oriental Province, according to the US-based Enough Project, soldiers committed 116 rapes in a single neighbourhood last October.

“A particularly egregious case involved the gang rape of a pregnant woman by five Congolese soldiers near the market of Bangadi on 8 October, 2009,” it said.

FARDC commander General Leon Mushale told Enough the problem was isolated: “It is the fault of the man, not of the organization … we are dealing with the problems on a case–by-case basis,” he said.

“There is a correlation between peace and rape,” Bora Kawende, acting head of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) office in North Kivu, recently told IRIN. “During war, soldiers here commit collective, massive rape.”

Legal gaps

The UN experts’ report said impunity, absence of the rule of law and women’s subordinate social and legal position reinforced a climate of general acceptance and tolerance for violence against women and girls in increasingly militarized societies, such as eastern DRC.

"The application of the law is weak," Kawende said. “And if a perpetrator is sentenced, the government must have a good jail where he can stay,” she added. In Mbandaka, a soldier was sent to jail for rape, but could not be locked up because the prison had been destroyed during the war.

Congo’s military justice system, the experts said, had retained jurisdiction over most cases involving serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, but was weak and susceptible to executive interference by military or political decision-makers.

“The solution is justice, justice, justice,” said Esteban Sacco, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs (OCHA) in North Kivu. “There has to be a system that brings to justice those who commit the crime of rape.”

Speaking at a seminar in Goma, North Kivu prosecutor-general Mulumba Kifulya said arrests and prosecutions took too long, and many victims were too poor to pursue cases or preferred to keep quiet.

Involving men

The charity, Women for Women, called on men to help reduce sexual abuse. “In December, we held a seminar for 550 trainers of trainers, including soldiers, clergy, traditional rulers and local administrators,” Clovis Mulungula, sponsorship assistant, told IRIN. “In the seminars, we noticed that some men did not know the consequences.”

At least 1.36 million are displaced by violence in the Kivus, according to OCHA. In Hauts Plateaux, Uvira region of South Kivu, thousands of civilians have been trapped by conflict since February, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said.

"We heard from people who have reached our medical structure that there are many civilians who are afraid to come to the hospital,” Philippe Havet, MSF's head in DRC noted on 11 March. “They are in constant fear of being attacked.”

eo/am/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88410NAKIVALE Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a "silent emergency". NAKIVALE Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a "silent emergency".

"We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food," Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda, told IRIN on 8 March. "For instance, we are delivering 15 litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard 20l."

After years of protracted conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with large influxes to neighbouring countries, the situation of the majority Congolese refugees is no longer considered that urgent by the wider aid community, Temporal said.

At least 45,000 Congolese live in the 217sqkm Nakivale settlement in Isingiro District and Kyaka II in Kyegegwa District, where, thanks to the Ugandan government’s refugee-friendly policy, they cultivate small pieces of land.

Temporal said the delivery of quality services was complicated by new arrivals fleeing fighting between government troops and rebels, as well as militia groups, in North Kivu.

"We plan for the existing refugee population but, often, many others continue arriving and this has an impact on the quality of the services we provide," she said.

Temporal said among the aid delivery gaps were the provision of shelter (plastic sheeting), water, health and sanitation, infrastructure and refugee protection.

She urged a shift in humanitarian assistance so that relief aid goes hand-in-hand with livelihood support "right from day one. We need money to get livelihood interventions going at the same time that we are offering emergency humanitarian assistance.”

Asylum seekers

UNHCR and other agencies also cater for asylum seekers and urban refugees, bringing the total to 142,758, according to UNHCR's 28 February figures.

"Overall, the food security situation in the country deteriorated last year in comparison to the previous year," UNHCR said in a briefing document. "For the refugee programme, WFP [UN World Food Programme] is planning to roll out a 'cash-in-lieu-of-food' project with a pilot expected to start in Oruchinga - a refugee settlement with some 2,032 refugees in southwest Uganda."

Stanlake Samkange, Uganda's WFP country director, told IRIN the project, due to begin in April, would help improve the plight of Rwandan refugees who have not been receiving food as they are long-time residents – some for up to 14 years.

"We hope the pilot project will help the refugees to better cope with breakages in the food pipeline," he said, adding that food distributions for March and April were in place but that a gap was looming in May.

In October-November 2009, refugees in Nakivale rioted over delays in food distribution. Officials said most of those who took part were new arrivals.

"Interim assessments indicate that if the food shortage is not adequately addressed by the next distribution, UNHCR operations in settlements will be affected, with limited staff access on safety grounds," UNHCR said in a January briefing document.

Limited funding for the refugees' care and maintenance programme continues to bring protection risks, such as insufficient quantities of water, inadequate health services, limited access to post-primary education services and lack of follow-up in cases of sexual and gender-based violence, according to UNHCR.

Service gap

Mupepelo Songa Nyangi, chairman of Base Camp II or the New Congolese Village, told IRIN most refugees were grappling with myriad problems, high on the list being inadequate food (for both those on full rations and those who arrived earlier than 2006 who receive half rations), lack of specialized treatment for those suffering from stress-related ailments, poverty-induced sexual exploitation and abuse and limited access to education as well as different syllabuses and languages of instruction.

"The life we lead as refugees is hard," Nyangi said. "We don't know what the future holds for us; our children who go to school study in congested classrooms in languages different from what they were taught at home and most of the time when we visit health centres the medication prescribed is not available or there is no special doctor to handle the more difficult cases of mental illness."

However, UNHCR and aid officials in Nakivale said efforts were made to meet the refugees' needs, with investigations of sexual violence cases being made, monthly visits by a psychiatric specialist, and schools being improved or expanded, including a new secondary school that began operations this year.

Agency officials said it was focusing on boosting refugees' livelihood activities in 2010, with various projects, such as goat-rearing and cooperatives planting vegetables in both Nakivale and Kyaka II settlements.

Moreover, UNHCR officials said, adult literacy programmes were in place and a youth centre was being renovated at Nakivale to offer vocational and recreational support for the mostly idle youths.

Side by side

Established in the 1950s, Nakivale has served hundreds of thousands of refugees. About 20,000 Ugandan nationals live inside the settlement alongside the refugees; they are allowed to build permanent iron-roofed buildings while the refugees are only allowed semi-permanent structures, with tarpaulin and plastic sheets.

Nakivale is divided into three zones, with different aid agencies operating in each zone. Four health centres serve the refugees as well as Ugandan nationals living close by. There are seven primary schools and one secondary school within the settlement.

Further southwest is the 209sqkm Kyaka II refugee settlement, home to at least 16,785, mainly Rwandan, refugees, according to UNHCR.

In 2009, UNCHR, local and international partners and the Ugandan government conducted a voluntary repatriation programme for thousands of South Sudanese refugees, resulting in a sharp drop in their number to 21,151 as of January 2010.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88379NAIROBI Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - Global funding shortfalls for fighting AIDS could make it impossible for developing countries to implement new World Health Organization treatment guidelines, activists have said. NAIROBI Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - Global funding shortfalls for fighting AIDS could make it impossible for developing countries to implement new World Health Organization treatment guidelines, activists have said.

WHO released new guidelines on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in December 2009, raising the CD4 count - a measure of immune strength - at which HIV-positive people should start ART from 200 to 350. Research has shown that starting ART earlier reduces the rate of death and opportunistic disease.

"WHO's new recommendations are excellent in theory, but they did not give us a practical way of implementing the guidelines - already we have shortages of drugs in trying to put people with CD4s below 200 on treatment," said James Kamau, coordinator of the Kenya Treatment Access Movement.

"How will we now put so many more people on ARVs? The increased number of people on drugs means not just more drugs, but more labs, more health centres and health workers, more general care - the expense is enormous."

An estimated four million people around the world are currently on ART - a 10-fold increase since 2003, when the drugs became widely available - but this figure still represents just over one-third of the people who need the medication.

"If WHO's new recommendations are not implemented, the international community risks subsidising less expensive yet sub-standard care for developing countries," said Sharonann Lynch, MSF's HIV/AIDS policy advisor, in a press release.

"Avoiding this will depend on the willingness of donors to make new commitments. Although this is not easy in today's financial environment, donor countries cannot back away from supporting the promise of universal access to treatment made five years ago."

"The situation is now an emergency"

In Uganda, where the government plans to release new treatment guidelines reflecting WHO's recommendations, officials said the number of people needing treatment would rise from 300,000 to about 750,000. The country recently suffered drug shortages in its public health sector, partially caused by funding problems.

"The numbers will be too great for us to manage," said Dr David Kigawalama, head of prevention services at the Uganda AIDS Commission. "We need to sit with our AIDS development partners to forge a way forward."

Ahead of a high-level meeting between Group of Eight (G8) leaders and AIDS advocates in London on 10 March, AIDS activists met with British International Development Minister Gareth Thomas on 9 March and called on the world's wealthiest nations to honour their 2005 Gleneagles pledge to achieve universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010.

"Instead of building on progress, some donor nations and governments of highly affected countries are backing away from the universal access commitment with a series of poorly funded half-measures on AIDS," the executive director of the International AIDS Society, Robin Gorna, said in a press statement.

"The situation is now an emergency: new treatment enrolments in many countries are coming to a standstill, the risk of drug resistance is increasing, and fragile gains made over the last 10 years may soon erode, with potentially serious consequences for future efforts to control this epidemic."

The activists singled out Canada - the only G8 nation firmly opposed to the Financial Transactions Tax, a tiny tax on financial transactions that could raise the billions of dollars needed to fulfil the universal access pledge.

The global economic downturn forced the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world's largest funder, to cut disbursements by 10 percent in 2008, while the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has flat-lined funding to many countries, limiting the growth of PEPFAR-funded treatment programmes.

kr/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88368NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Here are the most popular new articles on the IRIN website over the last 24 hours. Updated hourly. This feature was launched on 18 July, but will display the latest, most popular items of today.NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - ---http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=73277GOMA Monday, March 01, 2010 (IRIN) - For the many thousands of people displaced by conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kivu regions who have returned to their villages, home has its many hardships.GOMA Monday, March 01, 2010 (IRIN) - For the many thousands of people displaced by conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kivu regions who have returned to their villages, home has its many hardships.

“Return has not always been durable, as the reduction of food rations in camps [for displaced people - IDPs] and the arrival of the new planting season rather than any improvement in security have led people to go back,” the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) stated in a 24 February report. 

“Many people returned home to find their land occupied, while renewed clashes in return areas also forced people to flee again soon after their arrival home,” it said.

Across eastern DRC, “access to basic necessities … has deteriorated over the last year in the context of military operations and reprisals and continuing abuses against the population. The vast majority of IDPs and returnees have no access to health centres and schools, or to clean water, food, seeds, tools or building materials,” according to the report.

During 2009, according to IDMC, about a million people returned to their villages in North and South Kivu - about the same number who fled because of clashes, mainly between government forces and Rwandan Hutu rebels.

In North and South Kivu, there are 1.36 million IDPs, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

In the North Kivu capital of Goma, some 77,000 people live in IDP camps, against about twice that number two years ago.

"Many have gone back to their land, and we are getting noises that more want to return," Masti Notz, head of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in North Kivu told IRIN.

“Positive change is progressively taking place in Eastern DRC,” Alan Doss, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, wrote in the East African newspaper on 1 March.

"While displacements and isolated attacks remain a problem in the Kivus, a number of people feel more secure today than they were a year ago," he added.

Status issues

Aid workers believe that in the wake of a tripartite agreement between Rwanda, DRC and UNHCR, many of the 50,000 DRC nationals living in Rwandan camps could soon return home.

Before the accord, thousands had already returned spontaneously. "In 2009 in Masisi, more than 6,000 people told us they had returned from Rwanda since 2000, under the auspices of various groups that controlled the area," Karl Steinacker, UNHCR coordinator for eastern DRC, said. "The challenge is to identify genuine civilians."

The status of the returnees, according to Refugees International, needs to be resolved given that some are Rwandans. There is also a need for stronger verification mechanisms to regulate future population movements.

In a 19 February statement, the group said locals had told its researchers of an area inside the Virunga National Park called "Coline Banyarwanda" ("the hill of those who come from Rwanda"), where they should not be.

Another large group of recently arrived Rwandans was living illegally in Bwiza, in a settlement inside the national park. In nearby Matanda, armed cattle herders had reportedly occupied land by force.

"It is important to note that these tensions are taking place in zones that are controlled by the former CNDP [The Congrès national pour la defense du peuple ] rebel group, who are clearly protecting these Rwandans," it added.

The CNDP, led by Bosco Ntaganda, theoretically ceased to be a rebel movement with the integration of its elements into the Congolese army in 2009, but security sources in Goma say it has retained some of its structures.

Land pressures

Competition for land, exacerbated by the destabilizing effects of enforced or spontaneous migration, is more commonly a source of conflict than generally supposed, according to analysts.

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), for example, argues that reallocations of land during conflict or the profit from sale or use of land can provide a means of sustaining such conflict.

In the Kivus, notes the Goma-based Pole Institute , the economy is historically based on agriculture and long-distance trade, while the economic dimension of ongoing conflict is about rights of access to land and control of trade routes, not about minerals.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88269JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need? JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need?

If you live in the remote semi-arid Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda - beset by 14 droughts in 25 years - you might also want to know what your options are for continued food security.

For the first time, a customized regional climate model linked to crop growing and water models, run on a supercomputer at Michigan State University (MSU), will help provide crop breeders in three East African countries - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - with detailed answers on crop yields.

Many research institutions have been working on models to predict the impact of climate change on food production in Africa, but in a few months the MSU model will help scientists and breeders to zoom in at a regional level on the possible impact of climate change on a wide variety of crops in these countries.

The research could help produce climate-resilient varieties of food crops, said Jennifer Olson, lead researcher and associate professor at MSU's College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

"East Africa is already experiencing the impact of climate change - food crops are experiencing extreme water stress," she commented. People living in Kenya's highlands, who have traditionally grown tea and coffee, have begun experimenting with maize and beans as the climate has grown warmer.

Work on the model began 10 years ago with the recording of relevant data, such as the impact of nutrients on a certain food crop, or the impact of water stress on another, which were subsequently fed into the model. "The model is still being perfected," said Olson.

The model can experiment with the impact of climate change, such as high temperature and water stress on a certain crop variety, saving the time that would have been spent on field trials, "which will help speed up the agricultural research cycle", she noted.

The researchers intend to launch the model at a workshop in June. Concern about increasing food insecurity in East Africa has prompted two institutions to set up a research grants to encourage innovative solutions.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), based in South Africa, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, announced a US$10.67 million grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) to support the establishment of a multidisciplinary competitive funding mechanism for biosciences in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

ILRI's Bruce Scott said they would be looking for innovative solutions using bioscience to improve crop resilience to climate change, or perhaps to improve the shelf-life of a food product.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88225DAKAR Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - A meningitis epidemic has struck earlier than usual and is spreading across sub-Saharan Africa's "meningitis belt" from Senegal to Ethiopia, according to health ministries in the region. The disease occurs during the dry season, with most cases reported in mid-April. DAKAR Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - A meningitis epidemic has struck earlier than usual and is spreading across sub-Saharan Africa's "meningitis belt" from Senegal to Ethiopia, according to health ministries in the region. The disease occurs during the dry season, with most cases reported in mid-April.

As of 7 February, health ministries in high-risk countries reported 2,298 cases, with a 13-percent fatality rate. Burkina Faso has reported the highest number of cases, but Togo has experienced the highest fatality rate, where 25 of 108 infected people died.

The World Health Organization (WHO) described the situation as "alarming".

Mamoudou Harouna Djingarey, a WHO epidemiologist and meningitis expert, told IRIN it was still not clear why infections were spreading earlier than expected. "This [timing] is a sign of a major epidemic risk if no action is taken," he warned. Extensive meningitis outbreaks tended to occur every eight to 10 years, he said, but were now occurring about every four years.

In the 2009 meningitis season, 14 African countries reported a total of 78,416 suspected cases, including 4,053 deaths, the largest number of infections since the 1996 epidemic.

Studies are being carried out to determine whether climatic and environmental factors might be influencing the extent of the current epidemic. Djingarey told IRIN that infections had also been reported further south than usual, including in Uganda, Kenya and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Burkina Faso

On 17 February the Health Ministry in Burkina Faso reported 1,251 meningitis cases, with a 15.4 percent fatality rate. This time last year there were 25 percent less infections, but a similar percentage of deaths.

The disease has reached epidemic proportions in Pama in the east, Titao in the north, Sapouy in the centre west, and Batié in the southeast, defined by WHO as areas where at least 10 out of 100,000 people are infected. Three other districts with half as many reported infections are on alert, according to Burkina Faso's Ministry of Health.

Vaccinations have been carried out in Pama and Titao, and more are scheduled to take place in the centre west on 20 February. "If we can react quickly the numbers will drop," Health Ministry epidemiologist Jean Ludovic Kambou told IRIN.

WHO recommends vaccinating everyone aged from 2 to 29 years and living in an epidemic zone, as well as people in neighbouring areas that are on "alert". If the country does not have enough vaccine, it can request no-cost or minimal-cost vaccines from a meningitis vaccine stock managed by WHO. Alejandro Costa, a WHO vaccine scientist, told IRIN no countries have requested vaccines as of 19 February.

Costa told IRIN 100,000 doses of vaccine from the stockpile had been sent to Chad, which did not have vaccines on hand but was facing an epidemic in the southern regions of Mandoul and Logone Orientale. Chad's Ministry of Health said 42,000 people in the southern town of Doba needed vaccination.

On 19 February the government reported 507 meningitis infections that have led to 56 deaths, an 11 percent fatality rate.


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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88179GOMA Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - A year ago, Goma town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was temporarily home to tens of thousands displaced by fighting between government forces and various armed groups. Now, many have returned to their villages.GOMA Monday, February 22, 2010 (IRIN) - A year ago, Goma town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was temporarily home to tens of thousands displaced by fighting between government forces and various armed groups. Now, many have returned to their villages.

"It does not mean peace has come to Kivu region," a military observer in Goma, capital of North Kivu Province, said. "Some villagers are relatively safer, but the general situation is still very volatile."

Goma hosted about 140,000 displaced people (IDPs) in camps at the height of violence in North Kivu in 2008 and 2009, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. In early 2009, some started voluntarily leaving the camps and now 77,000 have left.

"Places like Goma have improved, but you can put concentric circles around the town," Karl Steinacker, UNHCR coordinator for eastern DRC, said. "The further you go, the worse it gets. It is a situation of return, displacement and movement."

There are 47 camps in North and South Kivu, hosting more than 117,000 IDPs at present. These include 15,000 who were displaced by clashes between armed groups in December.

The violence is the bane of the Kivu region. In a recent attack, on 11 February, the FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group based in eastern DRC and the target of UN-backed FARDC (DRC army) operations, reportedly killed seven women who were going to Bisembe forest market in Rutshuru area. Eight escaped, but only three reached home.

Alan Doss, head of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), said it was an act of cowardice because the FDLR targeted the most vulnerable. MONUC is working with the FARDC to secure that zone.

"Armed men still roam the villages," said a former IDP from Bukavu in South Kivu who now lives in Goma. "There is no effective government in much of North and South Kivu. Until government arrives, it is a free-for-all."

Most of the recent violence is blamed on the FDLR, whose strength, according to military observers in Goma, is about 5,000.

"The FDLR are like bees in a corner," Esteban Sacco, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in North Kivu, told IRIN. "Nothing happens when you don't touch them, but if you poke them, trouble will break out."

NGOs targeted

Some 1.36 million people are displaced in Kivu region, according to OCHA, one million of whom fled their homes in 2009.

UNHCR is worried about the situation in some camps. "In Kichanga, IDPs are being used for forced labour," said Masti Notz, head of the UNHCR North Kivu office. "We have increasing concerns about what is going on."

Attacks against aid workers are another source of worry. On 13 February, local NGO employees were ambushed and lost property in Rutshuru, according to security sources.

In January alone, some 20 attacks targeting humanitarian actors were recorded in North Kivu.

"We have had 14 incidents in Masisi alone since the year began," Sacco said.

Raphael Wakenge, head of the civil society group Congolese Coalition for Transitional Justice, said that "people may be willing to return but worry" about insecurity.

"The return conditions are not attractive; there is no guarantee of security," he told IRIN. "When you visit Fizi territory there are military operations that are hindering population return."

New offensive

A new offensive was launched in January to rout the FDLR. The operation, code-named Amani Leo, Swahili for “Peace Today”, replaced Kimia II, which was strongly criticized [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84943] by human rights watchdogs for abuses against civilians.

According to Wakenge, Kimia II was "a good initiative" that was spoilt by "civilian protection issues".

Koen Vlassenroot of the University of Ghent wrote in a paper that it complicated the local political and military situation, and had a dramatic humanitarian impact.

"Even more worrisome was the conduct of the new integrated Congolese army brigades, which were reported to be increasingly involved in gross human rights violations, including random killings of civilians in the new territories of control," Vlassenroot noted.

Amani Leo has so far attracted cautious optimism. "The formal concept of this... offensive [puts] a strong emphasis on [the] protection of civilians, common planning, and conditionality of MONUC support linked to respect of human rights by FARDC," Guillaume Lacaille, a senior analyst for Central Africa with the International Crisis Group (ICG), told IRIN.

According to MONUC, the operation will give priority to civilian protection, especially of children and women, holding territory liberated from armed groups and helping to restore state authority.

"Protection of civilians has been the central concern in our planning," MONUC commander Lt General Babacar Gaye told the Security Council in January. A zero tolerance policy on human rights violations will be enforced.

"Whether Amani Leo will succeed is something one should wait to see," said Nelson Alusala, senior researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies. DRC and Rwanda would, however, want to fast-track it ahead of possible MONUC cuts, and Congolese and Rwandan elections in 2011.

"The FDLR have two options - go back voluntarily or force their way back because Rwanda cannot negotiate with them," a security source in Goma told IRIN. "These were regular soldiers and they remain capable of destabilizing parts of the Kivu region."

Resource battle

The conflict in the Kivus is fuelled by vast natural resources in the region, including gold. The main warring parties, according to Global Witness, control much of the lucrative mineral trade.

"Natural resources must be recognized not only as part of the problem but also as an essential part of the solution," the group's Mike Davis wrote in a recent report.

"Numerous armed groups in DRC thrive on unregulated trade in minerals," Alusala said. "Minerals are also exchanged for weapons, and that sustains the conflict."

The Bonn International Centre for Conversion [http://www.bicc.de/] argues that those interested in the DRC's natural resources still "possess a spoiling potential". These include influential former fighters who are now part of informal power and trading networks.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88193GOMA Tuesday, February 16, 2010 (IRIN) - Perched on a hillside, the volcano observatory in Goma, capital of North Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, commands a great view of nearby Nyiragongo mountain. GOMA Tuesday, February 16, 2010 (IRIN) - Perched on a hillside, the volcano observatory in Goma, capital of North Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), commands a great view of nearby Nyiragongo mountain.

"Goma faces the highest risk any city in the world could face," said Dario Tedesco, coordinator, project for the prevention and analysis of volcanic hazards in the DRC. The project is based at the Prevention and Analysis of Volcanic Hazard Unit of the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS), near the observatory.

"We don't just have volcanoes; we have gas emissions, acid rain, polluted water and endemic fluorosis," he added. "People are asphyxiated in this region every year, because there are fractures emitting carbon dioxide all over the rift."

"It is difficult to estimate the number of people who are dying," Ciraba Mateso, scientific secretary in the department of geophysics at the observatory.

"People who live around here know where the gas is, so they avoid it," he added. "But there were more deaths when IDPs [internally displaced people] came to this region because they did not know where the gas is."

Nyiragongo is one of the two active volcanoes in North Kivu. The other, Nyamulagira, erupted on 2 January, spewing lava 10km away and threatening the town of Sake and the Sake-Goma road. Sake is a major source of Goma's fresh food.

That eruption was Nyamulagira's 35th since 1882. Little damage occurred because the lava mainly flowed into Virunga National Park, according to North Kivu deputy governor Feller Lutaichirwa.

Two days later, the lava movement increased, flowing 500m within 24 hours. Then it slowed down. By the time it stopped, according to Action by Churches Together, rainwater collected for drinking in Sake, Kingi and Rusayo villages was polluted.

Local health centres also reported increased cases of diarrhoea and eye diseases while residents reported the deaths of livestock, the charity added.

Crisis management

UN agencies, international and local NGOs, such as the Congolese Red Cross, set up a contingency plan and a crisis management team. On 10 January, the agencies and government evaluated the situation in nearby villages and found the situation quiet.

"Nyamulagira is 32km west of Goma, but we were terrified when it happened," a local resident in Goma, Françoise Turange, told IRIN. "There was a lot of panic. We thought it would be like 2002 when Nyiragongo erupted."

That eruption lasted 24 hours. The volcano is 17km from Goma town, but it left scores of people dead, 120,000 homeless and 18 percent of the town's surface covered in lava, according to the observatory.

About 300,000 people had to be evacuated. Others fled across the Rwandan border to Gisenyi town, according to aid workers. At Goma airport, half the runway was covered in lava, further complicating relief efforts.

"The eruption of Nyamulagira in January was a wake-up call, a reminder that Goma faces a grave risk," one aid worker told IRIN on 13 February. "After Haiti, we need to be prepared for eventualities."

Exposed

Located in the East African Rift Valley, Goma lies in a region that has been wrecked by years of fighting between DRC government forces and various armed groups, including Rwandan Hutu militants.

The insecurity has affected the work of the observatory, forcing experts to monitor the volcanoes mainly using helicopters from the UN Mission in Congo, MONUC. For example, after Nyamulagira erupted, MONUC arranged daily flights to assess the intensity of the volcano. That has now been reduced to two weekly flights.

Against these odds, the population of Goma has grown to about one million from 400,000 in 2004 and 250,000 in 2002, making it difficult to evacuate in the event of a volcanic eruption, a military observer in Goma said.

Preparedness

The 2009 contingency plan that was used by the government, UN agencies and NGOs to respond to the Nyamulagira eruption was developed on past scenarios.

The DRC government has endorsed it, and this now forms the basis for response in the event of an eruption that will require the evacuation of the population. But, say aid workers in Goma, the plan is largely under-resourced.

"Everybody living here is scared," one NGO worker said. "The trouble is, aid agencies will fly out their staff. What about the locals? Can anybody really move a million people out of this town quickly enough?"

Residents worry too. "It is one thing to hear on the radio that we should run towards Gisenyi, but I have 11 children and moving them on foot would be hard," said Turange, who is in his early 50s.

"The idea is to have an early warning alert," Dario told IRIN. "But this needs specific work - we call it science for end-users. The problem is that we are not getting enough support and funding."

The observatory has some equipment, but it needs to conduct a tomography [a sort of radiography beneath the volcano] to understand where the magmatic reservoirs are, but has so far failed to find the required US$500,000-$1 million, partly to fly in scientists.

"In January, all activity started without any specific warning, without any detectable precursor," Dario said. "This tells us the magma was already there, waiting to get out. It could happen again.

"We fear that the fracture reached the city during the 2002 Nyiragongo eruptive event, meaning the next eruption could start from the city itself. We need to know how it is working and where the magmatic reservoir is."

The volcanoes are also being watched by experts in Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, NASA, and Michigan in the USA, who collect satellite information. Some of them also watch Lake Kivu, which is rich in methane and carbon dioxide.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88115BUNIA Friday, February 12, 2010 (IRIN) - Eight months after the end of joint military operations by the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, many parts of Orientale Province, in northeastern DRC, are still in turmoil, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.BUNIA Friday, February 12, 2010 (IRIN) - Eight months after the end of joint military operations by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, many parts of Orientale Province, in northeastern DRC, are still in turmoil, says the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Attacks on civilians by Ugandan rebels and local militias have left 340,000 people displaced, and 30,000 refugees have fled to Sudan [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87516].

“Following attacks by the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] in December, there has been a 9 percent rise in the number of displaced in Haut Uélé [near the border with Sudan], and an 11 percent increase in Bas Uélé [near the border with the Central African Republic] compared to earlier months,” said Jean Charles Dupin, head of OCHA in Orientale Province.

Aid workers say 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are inaccessible due to insecurity in Uélé District.

“Since the departure of the Ugandan forces, the LRA has regrouped... The security forces can’t be everywhere, and the LRA is exploiting this situation to attack villages,” said Lt-Col Jean-Paul Dietrich, spokesman for the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC).

The joint DRC-Uganda military operation from 14 December 2008 until mid-March 2009 weakened the LRA but did not succeed in neutralizing it. The rebels dispersed in small, highly mobile groups into territory five times bigger than before the operation, according to civil society groups in Ituri.

“The LRA came and broke down our door, and took away four of my daughters, one boy and myself. We spent five days which I will never forget. We suffered a lot. We were starving... They made us carry very heavy things, and if you tried to argue, they killed you,” said Digida Vungu.

“We carried people injured in the fighting and fresh cassava; they didn’t even give us water to drink. At night they tied us up so we couldn’t escape,” said Pascal Mubelega.

“The LRA uses the people it kidnaps to replenish its forces… Those seized go through a rite of passage involving drugs to embolden them to kill... A child who managed to escape from the LRA was reunited with his family, but one day this child did not think twice about killing his mother over a petty family quarrel,” said Nicolas Mapendo, a journalist coming back from Dungu.

Since December 2007 when the violence began, 1,776 people have died in LRA attacks in the DRC, according to aid workers.

Ituri

Militias within the Front Populaire pour la Justice au Congo (FPJC) and the Front de Résistance Patriotique de l’Ituri (FRPI), having refused to take part in the 2007 disarmament drive, have been very active in Walendu-Bindi territory, especially in the Bunia-Komanda and Aveba-Gety-Bukiringi areas, 70-100km south of Bunia in the eastern part of Orientale Province; in December 2009 six attacks were reported.

Following a 12 January attack by unidentified armed men on eight villages in Zunguluka, 100km south of Bunia, 3,519 families were forced to flee, according to OCHA. The attacks reportedly left six dead; four women were kidnapped and raped before being released. Several buildings were looted and burned down.

“We found 56 children walking around naked because all their clothes were gone. More than 108 houses were looted and burned down. Kamapondi and Zunguluka primary schools and the local Anglican church were also torched,” said a senior official from Boga, 120km south of Bunia.

Some 30,000 IDPs are inaccessible because of insecurity in the south of Irumu Territory, said OCHA’s Dupin.

According to Joel Adjiba, an aid worker helping those displaced from Aveba (90km south of Bunia), tens of thousands of people are still effectively kidnapped by militia groups in the Mukatangazi area (140km south of Bunia).

“To keep the population under control, the militias are saying ‘anyone who tries to escape will be killed during the upcoming offensive to capture Bunia town. Stay with us if you don’t want to be killed’,” said Adjiba.

According to aid workers, the total number of IDPs south of Bunia is about 102,000.

Ibrahim Diouf, head of the MONUC political affairs office in Ituri, said it was down to the local and central authorities to deal with the militias; MONUC could only provide logistical support.

MONUC has 20,000 troops in the DRC; 4,000 are based in Ituri for operations in Ituri, Haut Uélé and Bas Uélé.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88082KINSHASA Wednesday, February 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Schools in Dongo, Equateur Province, in western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the scene of inter-ethnic clashes from October to December 2009, are still closed because parents are worried about security, despite a call for their reopening by the provincial government.KINSHASA Wednesday, February 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Schools in Dongo, Equateur Province, in western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the scene of inter-ethnic clashes from October to December 2009, are still closed because parents are worried about security, despite a call for their reopening by the provincial government.

"We asked if the schools could be reopened, but parents are reluctant as long as the militia are still at large,” said provincial education minister Richard Baengeto.

"Some parents and their children are still in the forest and refusing to go back to their villages, fearing for their safety,” Baengeto told IRIN.

Clashes between the Lobala and Boba ethnic groups led to more than 200 deaths and the flight of 150,000 more - of whom 60 percent are children - to neighbouring Republic of Congo, says the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

According to a December 2009 report by UN agencies in South Ubangi District, of which Dongo is the capital, the region has 1,085 primary schools with 251,383 children.

The area affected by displacement has 904 primary schools and 200,110 enrolled children. Schools in Dongo have been closed since November and in other areas since December after the population fled.

"In and around Dongo there are 132 schools. A dozen were destroyed or burned down, but most are in a state of advanced dilapidation, having been built in the Belgian colonial era. Others were constructed out of straw by villagers,” Raphaël Sanduku, director of education in Equateur Province, told IRIN.

Apart from the destruction of schools, teaching materials have been stolen and desks taken to Dongo and Boyazala for firewood, according to the report.

Saving the school year

The provincial authorities have taken measures to save the current school year by rearranging the school calendar to make up for lost days, said Sanduku. "But some parents have sent their children to finish their studies in Bomboma, Muanda or Bokonzi."

Paul Mbila, a resident of Dongo and father of eight, three of whom are in secondary school, believes "the future of our children is compromised… It is difficult to persuade me to send my children to school until security is fully restored.”

Children and adolescents have also been subjected to violence. Some were recruited by insurgents. In Bozene and Bobito, four children were the victims of sexual violence; in Bozene, a girl with trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) was raped by four DRC army soldiers. Similar cases were registered in Bobito market, according to NGOs.

According to the provincial education minister, the rehabilitation of schools is “an urgent need. The government of Equateur will invest in the rehabilitation of some of the burned-down schools.”

In response to the crisis in Dongo, NGOs and the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) are planning in the next six months to set up temporary schools in areas where the displaced have moved, for at least 24,600 children - 41 percent of those displaced. They envisage supplying schools with teaching kits, and rehabilitating 12 schools at a cost of US$1.5 million.

em/cb/aw/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88061NAIROBI Monday, February 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Internally displaced people (IDPs) are still being abducted by armed groups for forced labour in several territories in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) even as authorities beef up security in IDP camps, officials said. NAIROBI Monday, February 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Internally displaced people (IDPs) are still being abducted by armed groups for forced labour in several territories in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) even as authorities beef up security in IDP camps, officials said.

“Men often spend the day away from the [IDP] sites for fear of being abducted, but most abductions occur during the night,” states a 5 February update issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Rutshuru Territory, which has about 129,000 IDPs, is among the most affected.

In southern Walikale Territory, Rwandan Hutu Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) militia on 28 January attacked civilians in the village of Isuka and abducted seven people, who have yet to be released, to transport looted goods, added OCHA.

Marie-Claire Bangwene, Masisi Territory administrator, said police had been deployed to two IDP camps there to ensure security and prevent militia attacks.

Armed attackers raided Muhanga IDP camp, in Masisi on 15 January, looting aid from an NGO. On 22 January, another attack on Nyange camp, also in Masisi, left three people dead. The government has started an inquiry into the attacks, Bangwene told IRIN.

"After the Nyange [attack], the camps were secured by FARDC [DRC army] soldiers and the FDLR withdrew toward the villages of Binga [about 60km away], and Mutongo [90km by road]…” the president of Masisi civil society, Thomas d'Aquin Muipi Luanda, told IRIN, noting that the often unpaid FARDC sometimes lacked the motivation to promptly respond to rebel attacks.

"Many people spend the night hidden outside their homes, while checkpoints established by the national army hinder the passage of civilians from areas affected by combat," OCHA said. "This compounds an already difficult situation in terms of humanitarian access, where 30 percent of intended beneficiaries are not currently accessible to humanitarians."

At least 12 incidents targeting humanitarian organizations occurred in the region in January, OCHA said.

Better protection

An aid official in Goma, North Kivu capital, who requested anonymity, said some IDP camps were in remote areas, making them more vulnerable to attacks, forced recruitment and other forms of harassment.

There are about 900,000 IDPs in North Kivu, most of whom live with host families; about 117,000 are in 47 camps. There are about 2.1 million IDPs in the DRC, according to UN estimates.

"Ultimately, better protection for IDPs [is a] subject of national security," he told IRIN. "Physical security/protection of IDPs is the responsibility of the Congolese government. However, IDP camps are prone to entry by anyone. [It is] therefore impossible to police each of the camps’ perimeters."

However, raids on and intrusions into camps by armed military personnel or militia groups "were in direct violation of the civilian purpose for which these camps were established and the civilian population that lives in these camps", UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) external relations officer for eastern DRC, David Benthu Nthengwe, told IRIN.

The Nyange camp attack was reportedly carried out by the FDLR militia. In Muhanga, FARDC soldiers took possession of items belonging to an NGO, disrupting aid distribution.

The attacks came as the Congolese government, with logistical support from the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), started a military offensive dubbed Amani Leo [Swahili for “peace today”] to oust FDLR rebels within three months.

Sovereignty

"The formal concept of this third consecutive military offensive [puts] a strong emphasis on [the] protection of civilians, common planning, and conditionality of MONUC support linked to respect of human rights by FARDC," Guillaume Lacaille, a senior analyst for Central Africa with the International Crisis Group (ICG), told IRIN.

FARDC has often been accused of perpetrating civilian abuses.

"After a full year of military offensives... the Congolese authorities have not yet been able to establish state sovereignty over both the North and South Kivu provinces," he said. "Many Congolese illegal armed groups continue to recruit and operate... Several hundred thousand IDPs remain scared of coming back to their area of origin. Human-rights violations are still at a dramatic level."

Bringing peace in the east, Lacaille said, demanded a more comprehensive strategy than military force [alone] and would require a long-term effort from both MONUC and the Congolese authorities.

"It is a reminder that even though President [Joseph] Kabila [has called] for MONUC to start withdrawing its blue helmets in June 2010... MONUC still provides a security guarantee for the [whole] country that FARDC [alone] cannot provide," he said.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88030KINSHASA Tuesday, February 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Rival ethnic communities in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have clashed many times over the years, but most recently over fish, observers say.KINSHASA Tuesday, February 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Rival ethnic communities in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have clashed many times over the years, but most recently over fish, observers say.

More than 200 people have died and another 150,000 have fled to the neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) since October 2009, when fighting erupted between the Lobala and Boba clans in Dongo, Equateur Province.

The clash was triggered by two attacks against Boba villages, including one in July 2009, in which 200 homes were burnt down.

"The clashes could have been prevented - or at least curbed - had there been more oversight of the distribution of resources at the Iwandi pool," said local analyst Polycarpe Nyalua.

Iwandi is one of the most prolific fishing spots along the River Ubangi which runs along the border between the two countries.

In February 1972, according to a Congolese army information officer, a pact was signed that would have shared fishing resources in Iwandi, putting an end to what he described as illegal fishing by the Boba.

A generation later, the Boba have revoked the pact and banned the Lobala from accessing the forest or the pools, the officer who preferred anonymity explained.

Lobala difficulties were compounded by the dramatic decline in the other mainstay of the local economy: agriculture. Coffee, cocoa and palm oil plantations across the Kungu region were virtually abandoned despite population increases.

Old quarrel

DRC government spokesman Lambert Mende said the fighting in Dongo represented a "contemporary resurgence of an inter-clan quarrel dating back to the 1940s".

"The Lobala planned and executed an ethnic attack, considering themselves to be above the law," said local deputy Jean-Faustin Mokoma.

With the two main pools around 71km from Dongo, more accessible seasonal pools have been stretched to capacity, leading to skirmishes over who has the rights to the fish, which are sold in markets locally, in ROC and the Central African Republic (CAR).

Government spokesman Mende said: “The Dongou attackers had but one objective - to remove [other communities from] a strip of land that they consider belongs to them".

Nyalua, the analyst, suggested persistent aggression by the Boba had left the Lobala with few options.

Powder keg

A military source from the UN peacekeeping operation in DRC (MONUC), who preferred anonymity, told IRIN: "The Kinshasa authorities played down the seriousness of the situation, allowing it to degenerate before reacting… The conflict in Dongou is a powder keg that no one knows how to manage.”

"In Kinshasa, they dragged their feet before sending in qualified police," said local nurse Jude Liengo from the Boba ethnic group.

The government in Kinshasa said a Lobala militia group, made up in part of demobilized soldiers, staged an attack on Dongo in late October, targeting police and security forces. Government forces, however, recaptured the town in mid-December.

But local residents continued to flee. By mid-January, more than 107,000 reached the Likoula region (ROC), according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Most were crammed into 70 sites along a 250km stretch of the River Ubangi.

Many more remain displaced within the DRC itself, while CAR hosts about 17,000 refugees, settled temporarily in sites near the River Ubangi in the Lobaye region. At least 60 percent of the refugees are children, many having fled orphanages, according to UNHCR.

A month has passed since the Congolese armed forces arrived to restore peace to Dongou, but the town remains deserted.

"The government has every interest in resolving the conflict through mediation, before pressing the populations to return to their villages, but they have to instill confidence and restore a climate of security," a MONUC source told IRIN, adding: "We cannot have a zone of instability and turbulence in the west of the country while we are trying to pacify the east."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87961NAIROBI Monday, February 01, 2010 (IRIN) - The international community should draw up a comprehensive strategy to tackle conflicts fuelled by natural resources especially in fragile African states, US campaign group Global Witness says.NAIROBI Monday, February 01, 2010 (IRIN) - The international community should draw up a comprehensive strategy to tackle conflicts fuelled by natural resources especially in fragile African states, UK campaign group Global Witness says.

"Taking the gun out of natural resource management is a prerequisite for taking the gun out of politics," the advocacy group said in a report entitled Lessons Unlearned: How the UN and member states must do more to end natural resource-fuelled conflict.

"Too often the political, ethnic or geographic aspects of war are considered to the exclusion of its economic drivers... In countries like the DRC, natural resources must be recognised not only as part of the problem but also as an essential part of the solution to conflict.," said Mike Davis of Global Witness.

Among other recommendations, the report calls for UN peacekeepers to be mandated to deal with the economic dimensions of conflict. "The problem with natural resources is not so much the nature of resources themselves, their abundance or their scarcity, but how they are governed, who is able to access them and for what purposes," it says.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87949NAIROBI Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has displaced thousands of civilians, forcing many to hide in forests or seek shelter with other families, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).NAIROBI Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Insecurity in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has displaced thousands of civilians, forcing many to hide in forests or seek shelter with other families, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

"While those who have reached safety in camps have access to food and non-food assistance, as well as medical help, the majority that are still in the forest or [living] with host families are not enjoying similar support," David Nthengwe, UNHCR spokesman in the provincial capital Goma, said.

Since December, 15,508 newly displaced people have been registered at dozens of camps, bringing the total number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the 47 UNHCR-run sites in the region to 116,000.

The agency, Nthengwe said, was particularly worried that more people would be displaced by ongoing government offensives and assaults by armed militia terrorising the civilian population.

"Our concern remains the safety of civilians fleeing these offensives," he told IRIN on 27 January. "We are prevented from reaching all the affected communities as a result of insecurity and impassable terrain."

The displacement follows several offensives launched by the DRC government in 2009 to eliminate a 6,000-strong Rwandan-led Hutu militia that controls large swathes of land, mainly in the mineral-rich Kivu provinces. The illegal mineral trade helps to finance the war.

The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the national army, the FARDC (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo), are blamed for human-rights abuses in North and South Kivu, including widespread rape and sexual violence.

At least 200,000 cases of sexual violence have been recorded in eastern DRC since 1996, according to the UN. Across the country, an estimated 2.1 million people have been displaced by conflict, including about 538,880 in South Kivu Province and 1,130,000 in North Kivu.

Meanwhile, the UN has called for support to civilians displaced by armed violence in northwestern DRC, saying those in Sud-Ubangi district were in dire humanitarian need.

The district is in Equateur Province, where sporadic inter-communal violence has occurred over decades. In October, clashes broke out over fishing rights in Dongou, gradually turning into widespread armed violence.

"After weeks of insecurity, the area is now sufficiently safe for humanitarian operations," Abdou Dieng, acting Humanitarian Coordinator in the DRC, said.

Equateur province hosts at least 60,000 people displaced by the violence. Another 109,000 people sought refuge in neighbouring Republic of the Congo and 18,000 in Central African Republic, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A major concern, however, is that the waterway, which marks the border between the two Congos and is the only available route to deliver aid to many of the refugees, is running low due to poor rains.  [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87801]

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87889DAKAR Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Health experts hope the release of data showing the success of rotavirus vaccine will help compel policymakers to ensure all children will be immunized. DAKAR Wednesday, January 27, 2010 (IRIN) - Health experts hope the release of data showing the success of rotavirus vaccine will help compel policymakers to ensure all children will be immunized.

Rotavirus – the top cause of severe and often fatal diarrhoea and dehydration in children – kills some 527,000 children a year globally, nearly half of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

“It is our hope that these data will catalyze action so that one day we can live in a world where no child dies from diarrhoea,” Kathy Neuzil, senior clinical advisor for vaccines at the international health non-profit PATH, said in a 27 January statement.

Published on 27 January in the New England Journal of Medicine, results from first-ever clinical trials in South Africa and Malawi show that a live, oral rotavirus vaccine significantly reduces the episodes of severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in African children during the first year of life.

The data “provide policymakers with the critical information they need to make decisions about rotavirus vaccine introduction,” George Armah, professor and rotavirus expert at Ghana’s Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, said.

The trial results led the World Health Organization in June 2009 to recommend global use of the vaccine.

The Africa trials focused on the vaccine’s performance in high mortality, low-income settings, according to a 27 January communiqué by PATH and GAVI Alliance.

Health experts point out that while rotavirus infection in treatable, it has devastating and deadly impact in rural and poor areas where people cannot access medical care. “Vaccines represent the best hope for preventing the severe consequences of rotavirus infection,” Nigel Culiffe of University of Liverpool said in statement.

The trials were coordinated and co-funded through a partnership between GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and the GAVI Alliance-funded Rotavirus Vaccine Trials Partnership – PATH, WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

np/ajhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87899DONGOU Wednesday, January 20, 2010 (IRIN) - John Kanilamba sits under the porch of a half-finished house on the outskirts of Dongou - his home, despite its lack of doors and windows - since early November. His four children play idly at his feet, all refugees from inter-communal clashes in Equateur province in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). DONGOU Wednesday, January 20, 2010 (IRIN) - John Kanilamba sits under the porch of a half-finished house on the outskirts of Dongou - his home, despite its lack of doors and windows - since early November. His four children play idly at his feet, all refugees from inter-communal clashes (link: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87743) in Equateur province in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“We were all caught in violent fighting; no one was safe,” the 39-year-old said, recounting the harrowing journey along roads littered with corpses, across the Ubangi river, to this town some 850km north of Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo.

“Friends offered me a ride in their canoe across the river; I don’t even know how to paddle,” Kanilamba said. “I can’t see myself going back, even if the [Kinshasa] authorities say it is safe.”

For Kanilamba, the situation is desperate; for the humanitarian actors and resident families who are again opening their doors to new arrivals, it is all too familiar. Some 5,000 refugees have arrived in Dongou – among the more than 107,000 arrivals in total recorded by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in the Likouala region, most of them sheltering in straw and palm frond huts on 70 sites along a 250km stretch of the Ubangi river. A major concern is that this lifeline waterway, which marks the border between the two Congos and is the only available route to deliver aid to many of the refugees, is running low due to poor rains.

“We just don’t have the resources; we made an initial appeal to assist 35,000 people, but now we have more than 107,000,” said Daniel Roger Tam, one of the regional coordinators for UNHCR. “If people don’t react, we will not be able to respond.”
The agency has managed to deliver 160MT of aid - blankets, plastic sheeting, kitchen sets, sleeping mats and mosquito nets - to the most vulnerable refugees.

In addition, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has begun to deliver around 20MT of relief supplies, such as nutrition kits, tents, prescription drugs, school-in-a-box (link: http://www.unicef.org/supply/index_cpe_education.html) and recreation kits and water tanks to Likouala.

Medical shortages

In addition to the lack of food is a persistent shortfall in medical equipment and medical assistance. At the nearby evangelical hospital at Impfondo, US missionary doctors work round the clock to tend to the steady stream of wounded, almost all young men.

“Since the end of October, I have treated about 40 wounded; only three of them had knife wounds, the rest were gunshots,” said Joseph Harvey, the hospital’s director.

The risks to the population are also more acute because of the lack of rain; local food production is down, and health visitors who normally run mobile clinics on the Ubangi river have been forced to suspend their operations because they cannot navigate the river.

Instead, Doctors of Africa, an NGO that conducts check-ups and other medical procedures for UNHCR, has had to double the number of static clinics, from eight to 15, over 100km, said Rufin Mafouta of the agency.

Although the lack of resources poses a tremendous challenge to the humanitarians, there have been no security incidents since the refugees arrived. Those refugees who bore arms are separated from the civilians, their weapons taken away and handed over to the authorities, according to Tam.

The US and French governments have donated US$4.6 million and 400,000 euros ($568,330) respectively in response to the humanitarian appeals. France’s embassy in Brazzaville has confirmed that French forces based in nearby Gabon at Libreville will ferry supplies to Impfondo before the end of January, including vehicles, boats and other supplies vital for UNHCR to operate in the region.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87801JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - The best search and rescue workers have stamina, a phenomenal sense of smell, and sharp hearing - they usually also have four legs. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - The best search and rescue workers have stamina, a phenomenal sense of smell, and sharp hearing - they usually also have four legs.

Highly trained dogs and their handlers can offer the best chance of survival to people buried in the rubble of an urban search and rescue (USR) site, where there are often no outward signs of life.

The dog

Intelligence and a remarkable nose make dogs ideal for the job, according to Ann Christensen, Canine Committee Chair at the US-based National Association for Search and Rescue. Most dogs have better vision than humans, particularly in the dark, and more acute hearing. But it is their sense of smell - said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of people - that really sets them apart.

Popular breeds are German Shepherds, Border Collies and Golden or Labrador retrievers, with trainers looking for a specific combination of talents. "There are only a few dogs can do this type of work, that have the right stuff. The average family pet can't do this, no matter what training you give them," Christensen told IRIN.

Disaster sites are usually extremely dangerous and stressful, so "a disaster dog has to be confident, courageous and agile"; it must be able to focus while sniffing through the wreckage and ignore all other scents and noises, no matter how tempting.

The training

"It takes a minimum of around 18 months to two and a half years to train a ... team [consisting of a dog and handler]. Normally, if you have a dog that has the ability, the drive, the focus to carry out the job, it actually takes longer to train the handler," said Chris Pritchard, Coordinator for USR Dog Teams at the International Search and Rescue Team of the United Kingdom Fire and Rescue Service.

Handlers are an integral part of the dog's training and by the end of it, if the chemistry is right, they are partnered for the duration of the dog's working life - about 10 years.

"When a handler certifies with a dog, they certify as a team and they work together. You develop a very strong bond with the dog because you spend a lot of time training with the dog, travelling with the dog, going on missions with the dog – you spend almost more time with your dog than you do with your family," said Christensen.

According to Wolfgang Zörner, president of the International Rescue Dog Organisation, the global umbrella body that ensures members comply with the standards set by the UN International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), international teams must pass a mission readiness test to qualify for deployment.

"Once you pass, the certification is valid for three years, but the test is very hard - it goes on continuously day and night for two days, and not more than 40 percent pass," he commented.

The Equipment

Canine-handler teams need to be completely self-sufficient for up to 10 days after deployment. That means they arrive on site with tents, food, medical and veterinary equipment or water. The dogs need at least one litre per day - more in hotter climates - to maintain workable levels of hydration. Appropriate kennelling is also important to keep the dogs secure on site.

Besides their leash and collar, equipment can range from lifting harnesses and cooling jackets to dog boots. "You want to protect the dog so that it can do its job - they are as important as the rescuers," said the UK's Pritchard.

The deployment

The first 24 hours after a disaster has struck is the "golden day", Pritchard commented. "The ability of the individuals that may be trapped to survive starts to decrease dramatically after that."

Zörner noted that "every disaster is different, but the main objective is to be on site as soon as possible. In every catastrophe there are always some miracles, and some people survive longer, but normally a person cannot stay alive without water for more than four days."

His last mission was the Padang earthquake in Indonesia. "When the call comes in we can be ready to deploy with the dogs within eight hours," he said. Typically, a call will come through the INSARAG Virtual On Site Operations Coordination Centre (OSOCC) – an online information exchange and coordination tool for disaster managers and international response organisations.

The canine-handler teams become part of a larger group of USR specialists. Once medical checks are passed, teams are briefed, equipment is checked and palletised for transportation, and the team heads off, either on civilian or military aircraft.

The search

On arrival the teams report to the OSOCC, usually set up by INSARAG in cooperation with the local emergency management authority. "The problem on the spot is always transportation. To get from the airport to the [OSOCC] and then to the sites," said Zörner.

Given the limited time and resources, initial reconnaissance to identify priority areas is essential. "It is important that they [OSOCC] already know where it is useful to search with dogs; that they have conducted an initial assessment," he noted.

The dogs are one part of the "technical search element", the others are highly sensitive acoustic equipment that can pick up minute sounds, and tiny cameras that can be manoeuvred through tiny cracks or holes drilled in concrete.

"It's a big game of hide and seek - that's the only reason the dogs go out and find. If the dog locates a scent source it will demonstrate that by either scratching, or through a focused bark, and will continuously bark at that point where the scent is most strong," said Pritchard.

"But that does not necessarily mean that the person is buried right under them - the scent can travel a considerable distance. We then work the dog at different angles to see if the scent is coming out somewhere else." A second dog is often brought in to verify a find.

The dogs are used in more than one phase of the rescue operation. "Once rubble is removed from an area and dogs can get closer, that may open a scent channel and allow the dogs to pick up on the scent of a person that is trapped. We recommit dogs to the building as we remove large pieces of rubble," Prichard said.

The rescue

"They recognize a human scent picture made up of many different scents - like the clothing that people wear ... the food that they ate, the polish of their shoes, sweat glands." It is generally understood that they also home in on skin rafts – scented skin cells that drop off human beings at a rate of 40,000 a minute.

Once a find is confirmed, the dogs are removed so that the victim can safely be taken out. Because searching is essentially a game, a find is always rewarded – usually with a toy – to ensure the dogs remain motivated.

Zörner said a dog worked for 20 minutes, because "If it works too long the dog loses interest and the work is no longer secure – he can give an indication even when it is not absolutely sure," and then rested for the same amount of time.

"We search only for live people - that is the priority." When the search is called off - usually 10 days after the disaster began - the dog-handler teams are sent home.

Then, as the humanitarian phase of the relief operation intensifies, another specialist sniffer dog - the cadaver dog - is brought in to search for the dead.

tdm/oa/hehttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87790NAIROBI Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response. NAIROBI Tuesday, January 19, 2010 (IRIN) - More than two-thirds of African countries have laws criminalizing homosexual acts, and despite accounting for a significant percentage of new infections in many countries, men who have sex with men tend to be left out of the HIV response.

"[They] are going underground; they are hiding themselves and continuing to fuel the epidemic," UNAIDS executive director Michél Sidibé told IRIN/PlusNews recently. "We need to make sure these vulnerable groups have the same rights everyone enjoys: access to information, care and prevention for them and their families."

IRIN/PlusNews has compiled a short list of human rights violations against gay Africans:

Malawi - On 28 December 2009, soon after a traditional engagement ceremony, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were arrested and charged with "unnatural offenses", which carries a maximum prison term of 14 years, and "indecent practices between males", which carries five years.

The men deny that they have had sexual relations, but the state prosecutor has applied for them to be sent to hospital to prove they have had sex, which rights activists and their lawyers say would violate their constitutional right to dignity. The trial has been postponed until 25 January 2010.

Uganda - In October 2009, David Bahati, parliamentary representative of the ruling party, tabled the Anti-homosexuality Bill (2009), a private member's Bill. It proposes, among other things, the death sentence for the crime of "aggravated homosexuality" when an HIV-positive person engages in homosexual sex with someone disabled or below the age of 18.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison.

AIDS advocates and human rights groups have strongly criticized the Bill as violating the privacy of gay people, and after pressure from several international leaders, President Yoweri Museveni has distanced himself from it, reducing the likelihood that it will be passed in its current form.

Nevertheless, a local tabloid, The Red Pepper, routinely releases lists of alleged Ugandan homosexuals.

Tanzania - In May 2009, a local newspaper, Ijumaa, featured a photograph of two men in bed together with the headline, "Caught Live!" A report by several gay rights groups http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/LGBT_Tanzania96.pdf noted that the accompanying article included derogatory and discriminatory language about men who have sex with men.

An Ijumaa reporter, accompanied by three policemen, had followed the men from the street into a private hotel, where they had invaded their room and taken the photographs that later appeared in the newspaper.

According to the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission http://www.iglhrc.org/cgi-bin/iowa/article/takeaction/resourcecenter/993.html, more than 40 gay and lesbian activists in Tanzania were arrested on charges of debauchery in 2009.

Burundi - In April 2009, President Pierre Nkurunziza signed into law a bill criminalizing homosexuality for the first time in Burundi's history. Anyone found guilty of engaging in homosexual activity faces imprisonment for two to three years and a fine of up to US$80.

Paradoxically, other articles in the same legislation take steps to protect human rights, including abolition of the death penalty and the outlawing of torture, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Senegal - In December 2008, the Senegalese government arrested nine men involved in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to the country's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82453.

The men were later sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of "membership of a criminal organization and engaging in acts against the order of nature", but in April 2009 an appeals court overturned this verdict http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84064.

Arrests for homosexual activity are not uncommon in Senegal; in August 2008 two men were arrested at their home in Dakar and charged with "homosexual marriage" and acts against the order of nature. According to rights groups, a total of 30 men were arrested on charges of homosexuality in 2009.

Egypt - In May 2008, a court in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, convicted five HIV-positive men of "habitual practice of debauchery", a phrase that encompasses consensual sexual acts between men.

The convictions were part of a crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS, during which 12 men suspected of being HIV-positive were arrested; while in custody, they were subjected to HIV tests and anal examinations to determine whether they had had sex with other men. Earlier in the crackdown, in January 2008, four HIV-positive men sentenced to one-year prison terms for debauchery.

Gambia - In May 2008, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh gave gay people 24 hours' notice to leave the country. He promised stricter laws on homosexuality than in Iran, and threatened to behead any gay people discovered in the country.

Jammeh's statements were thought to have been in response to a number of Senegalese gay men fleeing across the border into Gambia to escape persecution in their own country.

South Africa - In April 2008, Eudy Simelane, the openly gay star of South Africa's Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found murdered in a park on the outskirts of Johannesburg. She had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed to death.

Rights groups said the attack was likely to have been an incident of "corrective rape", in which men rape lesbian women on the pretext of trying to "cure" them of their sexual orientation.

Since then there has been a spate of similar attacks http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85268 on lesbian women in the country, but few ever reach the courts. According to a 2009 report by the NGO, ActionAid, there have been 31 recorded murders of lesbian women since 1998, with just three cases reaching the courts, and only one conviction.

Cameroon - In January 2008, a Cameroonian court sentenced three men accused of homosexuality to six months' hard labour. Homosexual acts are punishable by up to five years in prison, and gay men are routinely imprisoned.

Although the penal code does not give the state the power to arraign someone unless the person was caught in flagrante delicto, rights groups say people suspected of being gay are often arrested in public restaurants and bars.

Nigeria - In August 2007, 18 men - all allegedly cross-dressers - were arrested in Bauchi State, a predominantly Muslim state in the north of the country; they were charged with sodomy, the charges were later changed to vagrancy or idleness. The men were eventually freed on bail, but in March 2009 the case was still pending.

kr/kn/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87793BUNIA Monday, January 18, 2010 (IRIN) - Annuarite Tagenge, 17, arrived in Bunia, the main town in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) region of Ituri on 8 January after spending almost a year walking through the forest to reach the town to search for her siblings. BUNIA Monday, January 18, 2010 (IRIN) - Annuarite Tagenge, 17, arrived in Bunia, the main town in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) region of Ituri on 8 January after spending almost a year walking through the forest to reach the town to search for her siblings.

Tagenge and her family fled the territory of Dungu in the northeast in December 2008, after attacks by Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels and a consequent joint Congolese and Ugandan government army offensive to oust the rebels. The LRA killed at least 865 civilians and abducted more than 160 children in the region over the period, according to human rights organizations.

Tagenge, who was 16 then, was wounded and admitted to hospital in Dungu in the northeast for surgery; along with thousands of civilians, she later fled the hospital for the bush. She shared her experience with IRIN.

"When the fighting started, we fled through the forest, [with] my whole family… and we fell into the hands of the LRA rebels. They killed my father and mother. Four of us survived; my brother, my two sisters and I.

"We then continued into the bush but the LRA fighting and attacks continued, forcing me to be separated from my brother and sisters.

"After walking for several weeks, I found myself in Abba [a locality further north along the border with Sudan]… I was all alone. As I tried to find my family, people advised me to look for them [towards] Bunia [about 700km south]. I then headed towards Bunia with three other girls. Unfortunately, we were often ambushed by the LRA in the forest.

"It was after several months that we reached Isiro [the main town in Haut-Uélé District in northeastern Orientale Province, about 600km north of Bunia.

"We decided to continue [on to Bunia] and it was after two months of walking that we reached [the] town.  

"As you can see … I am wiped out from the journey, my feet are swollen, I suffered a lot because of the wound from the operation and [was sick] in my lower abdomen and back, [but] there was no medicine.  

"Along the way, we sucked on sugar cane that FARDC [Congolese army] soldiers gave us out of pity; we had no money for food, our clothes were torn, we were almost naked.

"[On] arrival in Bunia, my three friends found their families, but not me. A woman took me into her house, just after we arrived here [on 8 January], but three days later her husband chased me away.
 
"Even if I do not find my family, I want to live, to continue my studies and to become somebody… what have I done to deserve all this suffering?”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87774ZINGA Friday, January 15, 2010 (IRIN) - Assurances from authorities in Kinshasa that peace had been restored to their home areas in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo carry little weight with thousands of refugees across the Ubangi River in the Central African Republic (CAR): they are in no hurry to return home. ZINGA Friday, January 15, 2010 (IRIN) - Assurances from authorities in Kinshasa that peace had been restored to their home areas in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo carry little weight with thousands of refugees across the Ubangi River in the Central African Republic (CAR): they are in no hurry to return home.

“We fled because we had seen soldiers wounded, houses burned, women raped,” says Charles Banganya, a refugee waiting for a World Food Programme (WFP) aid distribution in Zinga. “We have been through all this before in earlier wars and we had no intention of living through the same experience. You do not wait for death. A wise man can tell the danger from afar. That is why we are in exile now.”

The refugee exodus from Sud-Ubangi happened quickly. Those who fled say they simply picked up what they could and headed over the river, using whatever crafts came to hand, with some drowning.

Sud-Ubangi lies next to Equateur province, where most of the clashes [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87136] took place.

The sheer volume of the exodus has left relief agencies struggling to keep up. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 107,000 people have fled DRC for the Republic of Congo. Many more are displaced within the DRC itself.

CAR hosts about 17,000 refugees, settled temporarily in sites near the Ubangi river in the Lobaye region. UNHCR estimates at least 60 percent of the refugees are children, many having fled orphanages.

Speaking after a visit to Zinga, WFP regional director for West and Central Africa, Thomas Yanga, warned that initial predictions of a short-term refugee presence had been wide of the mark.

“We anticipate that the refugees will be there for at least a year,” said Yanga, adding that WFP had responded as quickly as possible to the influx, liaising closely with the local authorities. UNHCR and others have pointed to refugees vastly outnumbering the local population in areas like Zinga and Mongoumba, which have their own nutritional problems. Yanga acknowledged fears among sections of the host population that the influx of refugees might jeopardize their own food security, but said WFP’s provision of food aid, including items like salt, beans and oil, had alleviated such concerns.

“From what I’ve seen, food needs have been entirely covered,” said Yanga, adding that WFP would brief other UN agencies on medical, shelter and other needs.

“Housing and food have been our biggest problems so far,” says Calvin Andoma, a teacher from Libenge. “We have been really exposed to the cold here. We need sheeting for our huts.”

This is the dry season and temperatures drop after the sun goes down. “It is bitterly cold at night,” complains Madame Ida. “The children are getting malaria, there is a lot of diarrhoea and some cases of typhoid.” Other refugees talk of several deaths in Zinga.

Fighting continues

Refugees and relief agencies have faced a similar situation in southeast CAR, with thousands of refugees arriving in Haut-Mbomou after fleeing attacks by the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army.

In Sud-Bangui, the refugee exodus was triggered by serious clashes between the Boba and the Lobala. Many of the Boba refugees in Zinga come from the riverside town of Libenge, scene of clashes between rebels and government troops during DRC’s 1996-2003 civil war.

Clashes between the Boba and the Lobala were first reported in late October. Boba refugees acknowledge that there have been longstanding tensions between the communities since at the least the 1940s, but nothing like the kind of violence witnessed recently in places like Dongo, south of Libenge.

“For a long time there has been a dispute about access to ponds containing fish,” says “Mr Jonathan”, designated refugee spokesman in Zinga. “There was a pond that was specially allocated to the Boba, but there was a break in the family line of succession and the Lobala tried to take over.” Neither local nor outside mediators from Kinshasa could break the impasse and it was the Lobala who initiated the conflict, he said. “They did not like the kind of solutions being put forward, so they resorted to traditional violence.”

The version from Kinshasa is that a Lobala militia group, made up in part of demobbed soldiers, staged an attack on Dongo in late October, targeting police and security forces. There were subsequent reports of Dongo being deserted by the civilian population. The Congolese government announced that the town had been recaptured in mid-December by the Congolese Armed Forces (FARD) and has since urged civilians to return.

But refugees like Mathieu Balimbala say it is difficult to get up-to-date information. “We are just refugees living across the river. We don’t know what is going on,” Balimbala told IRIN. “We would like to go back and see if we can live in peace again, but that is not for now.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87743KINSHASA Tuesday, December 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Years of conflict and instability mean the Democratic Republic of Congo is still among the worst countries in the world to be pregnant, despite a nationwide push to improve maternal, infant and childhood mortality rates.KINSHASA Tuesday, December 22, 2009 (IRIN) - Years of conflict and instability mean the Democratic Republic of Congo is still among the worst countries in the world to be pregnant, despite a nationwide push to improve maternal, infant and childhood mortality rates.

“Every hour of every day in DRC, four women die from complications of pregnancy and labour, and for every woman who dies, between 20 and 30 have serious complications, such as obstetric fistula, which is very common in DRC,” said Richard Dackam Ngacthou, country representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). For every 100,000 live births 1,100 women die, he said.

But to meet a national target of reducing the number of women who die in childbirth by 75 percent and to provide all Congolese with access to contraception – in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals – new funding targets must be achieved.

The funding gap is severe: in 2008 some US$5 million went towards the fight against maternal mortality, whereas in 2009 less than $2 million was allocated. Congo’s 2010 budgetary situation is no less dire, with only around $6 million planned to finance the entire health sector, where some $60 million would be warranted, according to a member of parliament.

“The Congolese government and its partners have developed a battle-plan, which clearly maps out the steps needed to be taken to reduce maternal mortality and is backed by a national strategy to obtain reproduction and family planning materials,” said Kossi Ayigan, health sector coordinator for the World Health Organization (WHO). “All we need is the funding to put this process in place.”

Beyond the funding shortfalls, however, DRC has to overcome ignorance about family planning, contraception and reproductive health. Few Congolese men have been co-opted into the global campaign to increase the use of condoms, and child marriage remains common, particularly in the eastern part of the country.

Nearly half of Congolese women have a child by age 19, Marie-Claure Mbuyi Kabulepa, reproductive health coordinator for WHO in DRC, told IRIN – the first of an average 6.2 children born to each of the country’s nearly 35 million women, according to population figures from the CIA Factbook.

Women become pregnant too soon and continue having children for too long; they deliver prematurely or beyond gestational age; and they have too many children spaced too close together, said Mbuyi Kabulepa. Worse still, just 6 percent use contraception – compared with 15 percent in 1985.

For all these challenges, health advocates suggest the number-one solution is a stronger, better-resourced national healthcare system that responds proactively to women before complications occur. Ante-natal healthcare begins with family planning, said UNFPA’s Joséphine Bora, and continues with regular obstetric care. Reproductive health must be a component of health education, standardized across the national school system, targeting adolescents.

This can also help to reduce unwanted pregnancies; of the more than three million births recorded in 2009, it is estimated that nearly half were unwanted. In addition, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of clandestine abortions, which also lead to death or complications that can include sterility.

The impetus would appear to be there, even if it has yet to be financially supported. At the end of the December 2009 national conference on the repositioning of family planning, First Lady Marie-Olive Lembe Kabila termed it “inadmissible [that] women continue to die as they are giving life”.

em/lg/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87530KINSHASA Monday, December 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Some residents in the Niangara region of Haut-Uélé District, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have started to flee their homes after recent Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) threats.KINSHASA Monday, December 21, 2009 (IRIN) - Some residents in the Niangara region of Haut-Uélé District, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have started to flee their homes after recent Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) threats.

The threats are reminiscent of the 2008 Christmas period when the rebels killed hundreds of civilians in the area and surrounding regions.

"The LRA rebels have circulated pamphlets announcing that they are going to 'celebrate Christmas' in Niangara and Dungu," Ambroise Mbongi, head of a local NGO, told IRIN.

"The Niangara customary chief urged residents to resist and defend themselves using poisoned arrows and spears. There is panic and the population has started to leave Niangara," he added.

The LRA threats have turned Niangara into a ghost town, with some residents fleeing into the bush while others are stationed along the Isiro-Niangara and Isiro-Buta roads, he said.

To prevent LRA rebels from crossing the Bamokandi River, which separates Niangara from the area of Rungu, fishermen have moved their canoes, he said. "This time, they [the rebels] will have to swim to cross the river," he added.

LRA atrocities

Between 24 December 2008 and 17 January, LRA rebels killed at least 865 people and abducted about 160 children in the northeastern Haut-Uélé localities of Niangara, Dungu, Faradje and Doruma, according to Human Rights Watch.

At least 400 people were killed in a spate of attacks on 25 and 26 December alone, including about 100 killed in Faradje at a music concert.

As Christmas approaches, so do the rebels, according to Niangara's deputy, Jeanne Abakuba, who told IRIN the LRA were about 30km from Niangara, some 720km from Kisangani, capital of Orientale Province .

At the weekend, an alleged LRA “spy” was arrested on the outskirts of Niangara, and will be transferred to Kinshasa, said a police source.

On 13 December, about 26 rebels looted four clinics in the areas of Makanza, Ngilibi and Tapili in Niangara. The village of Makombo was also attacked. Two days later, the rebels shot six people, including a fisherman, who had helped them with a canoe to cross the Uéle River, a soldier and the Tapili village chief.

In March 2009, the rebels burned houses in Manziba, 15km from Niangara and invaded farms, forcing residents in surrounding villages towards Niangara, said Abakuba.

Army assurances

"The insecurity caused by the LRA is perennial. We are all the more worried that... government authorities do nothing to drive the rebels out of the country," said Célestin Bamongoyo, a member of Niangara civil society.

The Congolese army, which has been tracking down the LRA rebels since the end of 2008, maintains that measures are in place to avoid a repeat of the past killings.

"[To] say that the LRA will celebrate Christmas in Niangara and Dungu is nonsense, but we cannot stop them from dreaming. We have taken the necessary measures," the army's commandant in Orientale, Gén. Jean-Claude Kifwa, said.

edm/aw/mwhttp://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87516BRAZZAVILLE Wednesday, December 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies have been unable to fully meet the needs of tens of thousands of people who have fled inter-communal clashes over natural resources in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN Refugee Agency. BRAZZAVILLE Wednesday, December 09, 2009 (IRIN) - Aid agencies have been unable to fully meet the needs of tens of thousands of people who have fled inter-communal clashes http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87252 over natural resources in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

And according to the Humanitarian Affairs Minister in the neighbouring Republic of Congo, the refugees’ destination, time is of the essence.

“We are also afraid of low water levels in the River Ubangi [which separates the two Congos],” said Emilienne Raoul.

“From 15 December it will be difficult for boats to navigate the Ubangi,” she added.

“There are now 77,488 refugees in Congo-Brazzaville,” said UNHCR’s crisis unit chief Ben Boubacar Diallo.

“Given the number of refugees, the aid would appear to be insufficient. The needs are enormous,” he said, adding that the situation in DRC’s Equateur province had yet to improve.

“We will keep supplying domestic kits [comprising mattresses, mosquito nets, blankets, basins and jerry cans] while mobilizing agencies,” said Diallo.

“Conditions are harsh. We have not yet registered epidemics because agencies offering health services have been efficient and vigilant,” he said.

So far the humanitarian response has involved:

- The World Food Programme on 8 December sent a boat with almost 300MT of food and 1,500 litres of fuel up the Ubangi river to the northern Likouala region, where the DRC refugees are now living along a 160km stretch of riparian territory. Some 90 percent of the refugee sites can only be reached from the river.

- The Italian government announced it has donated 300,000 euros (US$442,597) to help meet the most pressing needs of the refugees for the next six months.

- The World Health Organization has made 2MT of medical supplies available to the Congolese government for delivery to the refugees.

- Some 500MT of food is warehoused in the southern city of Point Noir but wagons are needed before they can be railfreighted to Brazzaville, from where they will be sent to Likouala.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=87381DAKAR Tuesday, December 08, 2009 (IRIN) - African health experts are calling on governments to vaccinate all children against rotavirus, to end an “unacceptable” yet preventable situation in which the virus kills some 1,400 children in developing countries daily.DAKAR Tuesday, December 08, 2009 (IRIN) - African health experts are calling on governments to vaccinate children against rotavirus, to end an “unacceptable” yet preventable situation in which the virus kills some 1,400 children in developing countries daily.

The West African Rotavirus Advisory Board on 3 December held a meeting in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, as part of efforts to advance the vaccine’s use after the World Health Organization recommended its inclusion in national immunization programmes worldwide.

George Armah, professor and rotavirus expert at Ghana’s Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, told IRIN the evidence is clear and must be used to push policymakers to act. “Rotavirus is one of the major causes of diarrhoea deaths and hospital admissions. There are vaccines that are very effective and can radically reduce mortality and morbidity from rotavirus infection.”

Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe diarrhoea and dehydration in children, with some 527,000 deaths of under-fives per year – 85 percent of them in Africa and Asia, according to WHO.

Following a recent rotavirus meeting in Kenya, a number of countries in southern and eastern Africa applied to the GAVI Alliance – the global public-private partnership to increase vaccine access – for assistance in introducing rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccine.

Call to action

The Dakar meeting – financed by GlaxoSmithKline, makers of one of two rotavirus vaccines – was in part a chance to present to West African countries a “call to action” from the Kenya meeting; the document says governments must immediately recognize the magnitude of the rotavirus problem and make vaccination against the virus a priority.

GAVI supports the introduction of vaccines in eligible countries, with a commitment that the country will gradually increase its contribution.

Armah said health officials are still learning about rotavirus. He said the key is making them understand the toll rotavirus takes and the importance of vaccination.

“It’s largely a question of ignorance. I’ve been to meetings where ministers have said, ‘We do not have a rotavirus problem in our country.’ But then we show them evidence and say, ‘Yes, there is a problem’.”

Health experts in West Africa say while rotavirus infection is treatable, for many people in rural areas who cannot easily access medical care, vaccination is the most effective way to avoid severe cases and deaths.

Caught early, rotavirus infection can generally be treated with oral rehydration solutions, according to a 3 December op-ed by Armah and Ousmane Ndiaye, paediatrics professor at the University of Dakar and head of paediatrics at Abass Ndao hospital.

“The main problem is that despite this simple treatment many children in West Africa continue to die of the illness. It is distressing for a mother to lose a child if a preventive measure like a vaccine is available.”

Armah and Ndiaye estimate that by 2025 the vaccine could prevent worldwide 100 million hospital stays and 2.5 million deaths.

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