Rumble: Congo - putting a face on the misery

You have met Cyprien, one of my dearest colleagues, before on The Road. "Citoyen Cyprien", as I jokingly call him, currently works with us in South Sudan.
You might remember his from this heart warming story from Aweill. What you might not have realized is that Cyprien was born and raised in East Kivu (DRC), which now is engulfed in violence once again.

I wrote to him today. I wanted to know how his extended family and friends in East Kivu, in the midst of the violence, were holding up.

I want to share his answer with you. It puts a face on the misery people in Congo endure. It puts a face on the avalanche of numbers poured over us.
When we speak of 2,000,000 people affected by the recent violence in Congo, we have to remember each of these 2 million people is an individual, with a life. With children, parents, friends, all affected by what we read about. We have to see the face of the violence to understand its impact.

Here is what Cyprien wrote:

I am sad. I have worked in Goma, Bukavu, Kisangani and Uvira. I know the places they are talking about on the radio, I personally know some of the people shown on the TV carrying whatever they could pick-up from their belongings. Fleeing for their lives.

I feel devastated. I am appalled and i am thinking of maybe taking some leave without pay and go back to Congo and see if I can be of help somehow, somewhere. I do not have yet a proper plan nor the channel or institution through which i would offer my voluntary services. But the shock-waves sent by news and images are too strong for me to resist.

If you are disturbed with the situation, you can imagine how much I am. Since 1993, I have shared almost half or my salary with my people in paying school fees for some Congolese kids whose families could not afford school fees.
Every month, I contributed to maternity fees for ladies who give birth to babies that are sometimes kept captive until mothers can afford the hospital bills. I paid dowries for young people who were willing to build families through marriage and who could not afford the dowry, or their clothing for the marriage ceremony. I have shared food and shelter with some of them during the previous conflicts.

Many of these people were strangers to me, but have become close friends because we have shared those tough times. I did do all of this because I love my country, and that gives me so much hope. Seeing it all collapse simply kills me.

I know how far what is happening can go. I have experienced it first hand. I understand how acute is the suffering of our people.
I know that the soldiers on the front lines are not paid their salaries. I know schools are closed and that kids, the future of Congo, are not attending classes. I know how many women, the biggest Congolese workforce, are being raped by the belligerent. I know our minerals are being looted and used to buy guns.
I know that DRC is under an arms embargo and that our government can not buy army equipment while the rebels are equipped with the latest military hardware. I also hear that some peace keepers are in many cases the trouble makers. I can not explain to myself why out of 17.000 peacekeepers available in Congo, only 800 are deployed in Goma.

I can go on and on. I am sad. I feel helpless.

Bottom picture courtesy Walter Astrada (AFP/Getty Images)

Read the full post...

News: The Forgotten Wars...

Most people in the UK are unaware of major conflict zones around the world, according to a new survey by the British Red Cross.

The survey was carried out to discover how much the British public knows about armed conflicts ahead of the Red Cross’ Civilians and Conflict Month, which launched this week.

Respondents were able to name Afghanistan and Iraq as war zones, most probably because that's where British military are stations.

However less than one per cent identified the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where an estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the country’s long-running conflict.

Less than one per cent of respondents were able to identify countries such as Sudan, Somalia, and Central African Republic.

Almost one in five (18 per cent) could not name five countries experiencing conflict. (Full)

I would add that in the case of Chad and DRC, the media is partially to blame as the crisis in those countries hardly ever gets the spotlights. Which is not the case for Somalia, and certainly not for Sudan.

If you look at all the campaigning which has been done around Sudan and Darfur, one would then ask, what it really takes to ensure the forgotten wars are brought back into the spotlight? Reuters Alertnet runs a survey on this topic.

Via The Other World News

Read the full post...

News: Georgia - a tit-for-tat game between Russia and the US.

The front page of the Russian Tvoi Den ("Your Day") newspaper today makes no secret of what it thinks of the West. "TAK YOU" means "F**K YOU"
The text below the picture reads: "For the first time in many years Russia has clearly shown to the West we are not going to live by its order."

Tensions between Russia and the US has been raising since a while. I wrote about this on The Road a year ago.
It seems after their battle of words on Iraq, Iran, the US missile shield, blabla, the two superpowers are now ready to rattle swords and have picked Georgia as their playing ground.

After the skirmishes between Georgia and its break-away or autonomous (depending who you ask) republics, Russia went in with full military force, knowing the US would take sides.
The US poked Russia by putting the US military in charge of "the humanitarian relief mission in Georgia" (more), and moved US warships with "humanitarian supplies" into the Black Sea.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev deepened the Georgia crisis yesterday by insisting that South Ossetia and Abkhazia should be independent nations, adding: "We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War."
Russia's NATO envoy then declared that military aid to Georgia for use against South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be seen as a "declaration of war". (Full)

Phew...

And you know what bugs me? Who will be the victim of this rattle of words or swords? The ordinary people. Some things never change.

Source: International Aid Workers Today
Pictures courtesy This Is London and San Francisco Sentinel

Read the full post...

News: Crisis in Kenya Impacts Whole East Africa

Readers of Aid Workers Today saw we have been rather worried about the wider and longer term post-election violence in Kenya. Not that I underestimate the shame of hundreds who died in violent street clashes, including dozens burned alive as they sought refuge in a church. But there is more to the conflict than what one can actually see on television.

First of all, an estimated 250,000 Kenyans are now estimated to have been displaced by post-electoral violence, which, in many places, has an ethnic dimension to it. Some 5,400 Kenyans sought refuge in neighbouring Uganda. The UN estimates between 400,000 and 500,000 people have been affected by the conflict. That in itself constitutes a new and major humanitarian crisis aid agencies are scrambling to deal with.

The direct cost to Kenyan economy is figured at $31 million USD a day, according to Vice President Moody Awori, due to many businesses having to close during the unrest and foreign governments advising their citizens against travel to the usually tourist-friendly nation. Hopefully this will have a rather short term impact, if the riots stop soon.

The sudden outbreak of violence may then have sparked a humanitarian crisis, but there is also a much longer term economical impact: Only a few weeks ago, with fears mounting of a global economic downturn following the US sub prime mortgage crisis, Africa was being viewed by some investors as a relatively safe bet for the first time in recent decades. The end of major wars in western and southern Africa, a string of non-violent elections and decent if not spectacular economic growth figures across a string of countries was sparking new interest and optimism. "In some ways, we are where India was in the early 1990s," African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka said in mid-December. "We are at the point where Africa is no longer an object of just pity and aid." Kenya was regarded as central to this process. Sadly, the recent violence has potentially jeopardised that, investors said.

The conflict also affects regional trade. Kenya's port of Mombasa is the largest and most important entry point for supplies in East Africa. The Mombasa-Nairobi road is the only way into Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, eastern Congo, southern Sudan and most of northern Tanzania. So no wonder the economies of the whole region are directly and immediately affected by the Kenyan crisis. Due to shortages of supply, petrol pumps are running dry in Uganda and Burundi and rationing is imposed in Rwanda.

At last, but not least there is the issue that directly concerns us, aid workers: the violence in Kenya has blocked aid shipments to the rest of the region. Traditionally, just like the commercial trade, aid agencies are heavily relying on the port of Mombasa to bring in relief supplies transshipped to Somalia, Southern Sudan, Uganda, Eastern DRC, Northern Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. Most of WFP's food shipments to east and central Africa are now stuck in Mombasa port leaving trucks stranded and contractors refusing to move without armed escort. That by itself, can snowball into one big regional crisis.

Sources: Reuters, UN News, AFP, The Other World News and International Aidworkers Today. Pictures courtesy Reuters and AFP

Read the full post...