Humanitarian Community on the cease-fire line in Tanganyika district of the DRC
In a large hut that hosts the local church every Sunday, a few mats are disorderly scattered apparently to accommodate the sizeable crowd. A lot of adults are represented by their children- practically bare for lack of cloth, their hurt dignity prevents them from showing up in the town during the daytime. A young lady, keeping her head down, with light hair - an ostensible sign of her poor nutrition, carries a child in her arms and holds a tin with two sweet potatoes - the only outcome of her six hour long strain on a land plot lent by a local family
- moves out of the crowd and stands still at visitors' length. Another
woman takes the floor to tell her story, but soon overwhelmed by her own
defiance and exhausted by a long walk and heavy labour, kneels down in
the middle of her plea and whispers her grievances: as many others
she arrived 13 months ago, having fled a few hours before her native village's
capture by rebels. A mother of eight children, she has since lost three,
too weak to endure the life of displaced children. In her tin, there is
a little pile of remains of manioc leaves, with no oil nor salt: "this
morning I wanted to work in the field but I could not". A man from
the crowd adds: "the river is just in front of us, but it is forbidden
to catch fish since rebels, whose tents you can see on the other bank,
might shoot. People on the other side of the river are not authorised to
fish either. Fear breeds famine on both sides".
Such is the situation against the background of a dream landscape at Ankoro, at the confluence of the nascent Congo River (Lualaba) and the Luvua river in northern parts of the Katanga province, where the fear of confrontation torments local residents since October 1998- date of the fall of Kabalo on the northern axis and April 1999 - fall of Manono and Kiambi in the east. It is this population, host and displaced, convinced of being unfairly forgotten by the world, that was met on 20 May 2000 by members of a joint mission of the UN Humanitarian Co-ordination, Ministry of Health of the DRC, provincial administration of Katanga and local and international NGOs. While only 7,000 displaced succeeded in finding refuge in town, 70,000 others have been dispersed on a 20,000 km2 radius, between the territories of Manono and Kabalo.
When asked about their most pressing needs, displaced persons unsurprisingly requested for food and medicines but also added: seeds and tools, thus expressing their wish to become self-reliant through an initial start-up support, and demonstrating their sense of pragmatism in assessing the slow path of the Congolese crisis resolution process.
This humanitarian mission was the first to reach out to a town located in the immediate proximity of the frontline since the outbreak of the Congolese conflict in 1998. Its essential objective - promote and ensure regular humanitarian access to the most destitute communities and populations hit by the effects of the ongoing war- was attained not only in Ankoro, but also a day later in Malemba Nkulu, further south. In that cross-road town, home to 190,000 residents and 44,000 displaced, UNICEF and ACF pledged to jointly launch a nutritional project to be supported by a subsequent market-garden promotion campaign. OXFAM-Quebec envisages to focus on improving sanitation facilities at nutritional and health centres and water supply. Finally, the same day a first consignment of 300 tons of food donated by the World Food Programme had arrived without any major impediments from Lubumbahsi to Malemba Nkulu at the end of a logistical saga that included a long shipment by train, barge and trucks. A distribution committee put in place under the auspices of CARITAS Katanga, will be piloted with the participation of those most interested in the success and equity of the project, i.e. displaced and local women.
In parallel, the joint mission could obtain an accurate evaluation of the degree of preparedness of the forthcoming national immunisation days 2000, aimed at eradicating poliomyelitis throughout the DRC between July and September. Equally, the mission brought a genuine support to the efforts of local health authorities, ACF and MSF in their struggle against malnutrition and epidemics of cholera in Katanga. Prior to that, on its way to Katanga, the mission could deliver an initial lot of 2 tons of food in Kananga (Western Kasai) destined to Demba, yet another sensitive location along the frontline. This intervention of the UN humanitarian system followed the findings of the UN Security Council mission fielded by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke on 5 May 2000 to Western Kasai, a mission that gave a gruesome account of deprivations that the civilian population of Demba was subjected to. And finally, OCHA, the agency- organiser of this mission pre-positioned in Lubumbashi some six tons of non food and medical relief supplies to be shortly dispatched to Ankoro by MEMISA/Belgium.
In fact, the findings of the joint mission in Katanga amply complemented and reinforced observations of widespread malnutrition, prolonged displacement and severe economic depression made in October 1999 by humanitarian evaluators in Nyunzu, an area adjacent to Ankoro but situated on the other side of the frontline.
Since then humanitarian interventions in favour of isolated and vulnerable communities have expanded, notably thanks to a relatively better response of the donor community to the UN Consolidated Appeal launched at the end of 1999. The need for a long-awaited financial impetus to cross-cutting humanitarian initiatives remains critical in a DRC context marked by shaken individual and community coping mechanisms and an obvious exhaustion of Congolese families throughout the country
Beyond the humanitarian momentum to be further strengthened, the only adequate response to the problem must be geared towards the implementation of the peace process, through the resumption of two-way economic exchanges across the frontline: only the return of fishermen and fishing boats on the river (and the flow of commodities on railway and road axes) could give a real chance to the young mother with light hair in Ankoro as well as to her brothers and sisters throughout the DRC. Also, their admirable ardour to get through and recover from the current turmoil should be understood and respected by everyone.