Dateline ACT

DR Congo 01/04

Refugees who fled recent fighting in DR Congo receive assistance

By Callie Long, ACT International

June 4, 2004, Cyangugu, Rwanda/Bukavu, DR Congo--With the most needy families who fled the conflict in Bukavu in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo for safety across the border to the Rwandan town of Cyangugu having been identified, a small distribution by EER (Anglican Church in Rwanda) and the Lutheran World Federation’s World Service (LWF-WS) of non-food items went ahead today. EER and LWF-WS are local members of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, a global alliance of churches and their related agencies.

Non-food items comprising jerry cans, blankets, cooking pots and other kitchen utensils, buckets and soap were given to 123 families that lost everything when they fled across the border to Cyangugu. Pastors from the Anglican, Methodist, Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in the town identified the families that most urgently needed help. The churches also distributed rice and sugar to some 1,700 people on Wednesday and Thursday, June 2 and 3.

In all, 30 families that had sought shelter at the Methodist Church and had been placed with families were identified as very vulnerable. At the Restoration Church, 35 families received non-food items. At the Maranatha Church and APEDR compounds, 30 and 13 families were identified respectively. The Anglican Church (EER) helped 45 families.

Calm seems to have been restored in the Mahumba section of Bukavu, closest to the Rwandan border, with no fighting reported since Wednesday, although the situation across the city is still uncertain. Of concern are reports that three of the hospitals run by churches in Bukavu have not had food for several days now. The same could probably be said generally in Bukavu, where people had not been able to stock up on food items before the fighting started.

The conflict that flared up in this border town at the southern shore of Lake Kivu had devastating results for many families. Some spoke of their losses and their fears from where they had found shelter in a UNHCR transit camp in Cyangugu. Debera Nyantutsi, who lost two of her sons, said she would not go back to Bukavu until peace had been restored. Rwakana Ribakare lost a son too—eight-year-old Merci was shot by “fighters” as they were trying to flee their home. Lucky to have survived with only a beating, Ribakare said, “This is a political problem that is now being turned into an ethnic one. That is why we are worried.”

The question of ethnicity is a deeply sensitive one in this part of the world. The bulk of the people who fled across the border to Rwanda to escape the week-long clashes are of the minority group, the Banyamulenge. They said they had been targeted by fighters and soldiers in Bukavu. The Banyamulenge are considered Rwandan. However, many Congolese of other ethnicities have also fled across the border. One women, Naomi Namanyana, stressed that when soldiers of the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUC) were evacuating her and others were from a hospital where they had been hiding, many of the local population who are not Banyamulenge came to their aid, protecting them from those who were trying to get at them. “Some people tried to pull us away,” she said, “but others fought with them to protect us.” Namanyana came across the border with only the dress she was wearing. She has been told that her house was destroyed by mortars and that all her belongings have been looted. “But I lost no-one, and I am safe here,” she said, referring to the transit camp for refugees in Cyangugu.

The UNHCR has registered 2,200 people in the transit camp, although less than 1,000 sleep there at night. Many people have also taken refuge with host families in Cyangugu. In the first days of the conflict, nearly 1,600 people had been offered refuge in churches before being placed with host families.

Nyaganza Nyantonesha, one of several women who had been given shelter along with their families by Obadeoas Mahrwe of EER at his home, said they would only return to Bukavu “once there is peace and God willing.”