Tearfund partners, who are among those who have been displaced by the massacres in Bunia, northeast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have appealed to the British government to ensure that sufficient numbers of troops are urgently sent to restore peace.
Well over 400 people have been killed in recent weeks in clashes between rival militias in and around Bunia. The violence erupted soon after 9,000 Ugandan troops withdrew from the town as part of a peace deal in the DRC.
A health worker with a Tearfund partner working with displaced people in Beni declared: "We are overwhelmed by the growing needs. Thousands of people are arriving in camps for displaced people north of Beni. They are suffering from great fear, malnutrition, scabies and many other problems."
The worker, who’s name has been withheld for security reasons, said that the stories being told by those arriving in the Eringeti camps for displaced people were shocking, even by the standards of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s long-running conflict.
"In the latest violence in Bunia hundreds of people have been killed with no mercy, beheaded by machetes and axes, including women and children. Pillaged and wounded by militiamen, people arrive in centres like ours empty-handed and in great need. Many people walked for weeks through the bush, living in the open without food. "
The Tearfund partner consortium - Programe de Promotion des Soins de Sante Primaires (PPSSP) - is a consortium of Congolese church and medical groups. As well as distributing soap, water and clothes to the arriving displaced people, they are providing trauma counselling and health education.
He continued: "We are hoping and praying that the international community will make an effort to enforce the peace here and ensure that Congolese politicians implement the peace process. If there is peace and security in our country, although we Congolese may remain poor, at least we will be stable."
The Tearfund partner added that if there was proper management of DRC’s natural resources, which have long been exploited as part of this conflict, "then Congolese people could live just as well as millions of others in sub-Saharan Africa."
Cath Candish, DRC Desk Officer at Tearfund said: "In September last year dreadful massacres led to our partners calling for more UN peace keeping forces. Now, seven months on, hundreds more people have been brutally slaughtered and the humanitarian crisis in the northeast is worsening significantly. "
Addressing MPs, Tony Blair said that it was ‘very important that the UN force is properly led and properly supported because otherwise we will revisit…the terrors of a decade or so ago. Former development secretary Claire Short has also acknowledged that more forces are needed in east DRC.
Concludes Cath Candish, "We are encouraged that the United Nations Security Council has given the go-ahead for a French-led international force to restore order in the area, but it is vital that they are deployed immediately as the small lightly-armed UN force already in the province has been unable to stop the widespread atrocities that are taking place daily. The situation remains unstable and our partners see that the violence is far from over, so they are urging our supporters to pray that peace be restored to this devastated region."