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115,000 flee ethnic violence in north-western DRC
Written by: George Fominyen
A Congolese girl displaced by fighting carries firewood at a camp near Goma in eastern Congo, Feb. 9, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly
DAKAR (AlertNet) - Raging ethnic violence in north-western Democratic Republic of Congo has now driven 115,000 people from their homes and forced aid agencies to put their work in the region on hold. The sporadic fighting - unrelated to simmering rebel violence in the mineral-rich east - erupted between two tribes, Enyele and Munzaya, in the village of Dongo in Equateur province at the end of October and has since killed more than 100 people. Some 77,000 people have sought refuge in neighbouring Congo Republic, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said in a note. Many of them have told the agency that Enyele tribesmen had gone from house to house, pillaging, raping and killing mostly Munzaya civilians in Dongo and surrounding villages, where hardly any people remain. Another 38,000 are displaced in Equateur province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNHCR added. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said it had put on hold its plan to deliver food to the displaced in Equateur province because of insecurity. "WFP asks all actors in the area to facilitate humanitarian deliveries to help those in need," a WFP spokeswoman said. A UNHCR spokeswoman added that the agency is also struggling to reach the displaced in Equateur. "The security situation in Equateur is still volatile and it has been difficult to intervene so far," she told AlertNet by telephone. Government troops sent to the province have been unable to quell the violence, caused by a feud over fishing rights, and Congolese authorities say they are planning to send in additional forces. At the end of November, gunmen involved in the clashes fired on a U.N. helicopter, injuring five people on board. The helicopter was delivering supplies to peacekeepers deployed in Dongo.
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