The Kivus: Critically wounded
November 24th, 2009
MSF PRESS BRIEFING on NORTH & SOUTH KIVU
Despite claims that the conflict in Eastern Congo has stabilised, violence against civilians continues unabated. Daily, MSF medical staff witness the results of the violence inflicted by armed groups on civilians living in the region.
The nature of the conflict in Eastern Congo has changed but its impact on the people there has not. The level of violence remains painfully high and new armed groups are still being formed in the Kivus, feeding the threat. For civilians, the war is not over.
To illustrate the physical and psychological wounds people suffer, on November 24th MSF is launching a new collection of personal stories called “Wounds” on its website.
MSF started the website a year ago to give the people exposed to violence in Eastern DRC the opportunity to tell the rest of the world about the hardships they are enduring. You can discover their stories on www.condition-critical.org.
The war is not over
Today Eastern Congo is overrun by armed men, aligned or not with a formal group. They meet their daily needs through the use of violence against the civilian population living in the area. The climate of fear is reinforced by a culture of impunity.
People are subjected to direct attacks by the warring parties. Villages are sometimes targeted for reprisals and often systematically destroyed. Individuals are subject to extortion and to the theft of food and personal items from their homes or makeshift shelters in displaced persons camps.
Some are taken by armed men to act as forced labour, carrying their belongings. Rape is an extremely frequent form of violence perpetrated against women, men and children. Over the past year, MSF teams treated more than 5,330 victims of sexual violence.
Repeated displacement and banditry
Civilians in the Kivus continue to be displaced in large numbers. They settle in camps for displaced people or live with local host families. Often they have to flee again and again as areas of insecurity change constantly. Even where people are able to remain in their homes, these are often looted by armed men, and in many villages civilians are forced to flee every evening into the bush for safety after dark.
To reach people in these insecure rural areas and those living in camps, MSF teams run mobile clinics and support health structures in both North and South Kivu. From November 2008 to October 2009, MSF carried out 528,850 medical consultations and treated 4,900 patients suffering from cholera.
Over the past few months, MSF has seen an increase in criminal activity, including robberies perpetrated by armed groups, which have seriously affected humanitarian organisations in North and South Kivu.
Attacks on MSF vehicles in the last few months, north of Goma, forced MSF to temporarily suspend mobile clinics and its support to health centres in several locations, preventing teams from bringing health care to those most in need.
More recently, during a measles vaccination campaign in the Masisi district of North Kivu, MSF was used as bait in an unacceptable attack on civilians. Seven MSF vaccination sites, where thousands of civilians had gathered, came under fire during attacks by the Congolese army against the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR). MSF denounced this clear abuse of humanitarian aid for military purposes.
Get involved: Send a support message
As part of this final collection of stories from people in the Kivus, titled “Wounds”, on the website Condition: Critical, there is an appeal for support from the public. Condition: Critical visitors can get involved by sending a message of support to the people of Eastern DRC, which will be passed on by MSF’s teams on the ground.
MSF has been working in the Kivu region of DRC since 1992. MSF teams work in hospitals and health centres in Rutshuru, Nyanzale, Kitchanga, Mweso, Masisi, Kirotshe, Chambucha and Lubero in North Kivu and in Kalonge and Baraka in South Kivu.
Teams also conduct mobile clinics for both displaced people and resident populations, providing specialised care to victims of sexual violence and referring the most severe cases to MSF-run hospitals by ambulance. Teams in North and South Kivu consist of 1,395 Congolese and 115 international workers.
From October 2008 to November 2009, MSF teams in North and South North Kivu have:
Cared for 5,330 victims of sexual violence
Performed 1,550 surgical interventions for people wounded by violence
Given 528,850 medical consultations
Treated 4,900 cholera patients
Vaccinated more than 330,000 children against measles
Treated 10,160 children for malnutrition
Provided 7,060 counselling sessions
